Clare Rogers says her daughter Zoe has been branded a terrorist

In August, Clare Rogers' daughter was arrested after allegedly taking part in direct action at an Israeli defence firm near Bristol.

"I discovered, three days in, still no phone call, that she was held under the Terrorist Act. And that meant seven days in solitary, and no right to a phone call... It was shocking," she said.

Zoe Rogers, 21, is one of a group of pro-Palestinian protesters charged in relation to an incident at the Elbit UK, part of Elbit Systems, a global Israeli defence firm.

Zoe was eventually charged with criminal damage, violent disorder and aggravated burglary and denied bail. Her trial is not set to take place until November 2025.

!A teenage girl stands outside a house on a residential street. Image source, Clare Rogers

Zoe Rogers is one of 10 activists who was arrested by counter terror police

"The idea of my daughter being branded a terrorist just fills me with horror," Clare said.

She added: "Someone who believes so passionately in justice, is lamenting the deaths of innocent civilians and children. To be called a terrorist?

"That really disgusts me.

"It makes me very angry and it worries me about the future of activists in this country, and the expression of free speech."

!A young woman on the train looking down at her lap. Image source, Clare Rogers

Zoe Rogers is being held without bail

Although Zoe was not charged with a terror offence, she and the other activists arrested at the same time were denied bail because the Crown Prosecution Service claimed there might still be a terror link. It was Zoe's first alleged offence.

"The day she appeared in court I will remember for the rest of my life. I hadn't seen her for seven days. I hadn't been able to speak to her," recalled Clare tearfully.

"The judge said 'no bail', and the next few seconds she was led out of the courtroom.

"That memory, it will stay with me forever. It was literally my child being taken away from me. I will never rid myself of that memory and the trauma that went with it."

'Mum, the marches aren't working'

!A mum and daughter smiling into the camera.Image source, Clare Rogers

Clare believes Zoe should have got bail

"She is someone who is very loving and very shy," Clare says of her daughter.

"She thinks very deeply and cares very deeply about social justice. She started to see what was unfolding in Gaza and that became a huge part of her life."

Zoe went on most of the pro-Gaza marches calling for an immediate ceasefire, but started to feel disheartened.

"She said to me: 'Mum the marches aren't working, the government's not listening.'"

Counter-terror laws 'used to intimidate'

!A woman wearing a hijab stares into the camera

Sukaina Rajwani's daughter is also being held without bail

Sukaina Rajwani is from Merton in south London. Her daughter Fatema Zainab was also arrested and charged as part of the same operation, and is also being held without bail.

"I believe the counter-terrorism legislation was used to intimidate and scare them and used as an excuse to keep them for longer," she told BBC London.

"I honestly thought she would get bail because she doesn't have a criminal record or convictions. She met all the bail conditions.

"She is literally a baby for me. She had only just turned 20 a week before."

Neither Clare nor Sukaina say they had any idea that their daughters might have been planning direct action with the group Palestine Action.

In a statement to the BBC, Palestine Action defended direct action and condemned the use of anti-terror laws.

"Elbit Systems, Israel's largest weapons producer, market their arms as "battle-tested" on the Palestinian people," it said.

"By misusing counter-terrorism powers against those who take direct action to shut Elbit down, the state is prioritising the interests of a foreign weapons manufacturer over the rights and freedoms of its own citizens."

Elbit Systems UK told the BBC: "We are proud to provide critical support and advanced technology to the British armed forces from our sites in Bristol, and this work has continued uninterrupted today.

"Any claims that these facilities supply the Israeli military or Israeli Ministry of Defence are completely false.”

'Law being correctly used'

!A man wearing glasses talking to a person off-screen

Jonathan Hall KC is the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation

Some UK human rights organisations are concerned the legal definition of terrorism is too wide and is increasingly being used to crack down on legitimate protest and free speech.

And organisations such as the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) are also worried about the use of counter-terror legislation by police.

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said: “The rise in the use of counter-terror legislation by British police against journalists is alarming and we are concerned recent cases are without clear or sufficient explanation to those under investigation.

"Being able to report freely on issues in the public interest without fear of arrest is a fair expectation for every journalist abiding by the union’s code of conduct. We have urged an end to the apparent targeting for its harm on a free press and the risks posed to both journalists and their sources.”

However, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, external, Jonathan Hall KC, believes the law is being correctly used on the whole.

"Just gluing yourself to the road is never going to be terrorism. Holding a placard is never going to be terrorism unless it's for a proscribed organisation. It's got to be serious violence against people or serious damage to property.

"It's got to hit that seriousness threshold before that could even apply."

But he says it is a fair criticism that the authorities hold a huge amount of power in the context of terrorism arrests. These situations, he says, are an operational decision for the police.

!An elderly man talking on a zoom link

Human rights lawyer Michael Mansfield says the definition of terrorism is "in the eye of the beholder"

Michael Mansfield KC is a leading barrister in human rights and civil liberties. Without commenting on this specific case, he told the BBC that he believed protest was a right, not a crime.

"Genocide is occurring in many areas of the world. Genocide is an international crime. You've had a court recently indicating that the occupation of the Palestinian territories has also been unlawful for the past 75 years.

"People are saying, 'What is happening about this? Where is the accountability?'"

He admits that direct action can sometimes be a crime.

"Whether the crime you've committed is terrorism, that is the question," Mr Mansfield added. "Some of these issues are in the eye of the beholder."

'She should be at university now'

The probability of being held without bail until November 2025 has had a dramatic effect on the lives of both Zoe and Fatema, whose university places are at stake.

"She should be at university now. She'd got a place to start this autumn, her first year at university," said Clare of her daughter, who has been diagnosed as autistic.

"She worked so hard for that place. She had to do an extra year of sixth form because of Covid; she didn't get the A-levels she needed for her chosen university.

"She did another year of study, got the place, and now she can't start. She can't even start next year, because she will be standing trial. That has been devastating for her."

Fatema Zainab would be doing her final year in media studies at Goldsmith University were she not behind bars.

"God forbid if they do not get bail on their next appeal, then she will try to defer for another year, " said Sukaina. "It's all unchartered waters. Every day brings a new challenge."

!Two women sitting on a sofa chatting while looking at a photo album

Clare and Sukaina have been supporting each other while their daughters are in jail

I asked Clare whether there is a difference between the right to free speech and direct action.

"Someone taking direct action to disrupt the Israeli arms industry, there is a law that oversees that and it is called criminal damage," she maintains. "It's not terrorism."

"If you look at what the suffragettes did, they were quite violent, they destroyed property, they put bricks through windows. We look on them as heroes.

"I think people will look back at people who took direct action in this context as heroes in the future."

>A banner accusing Sinn Féin of being "traitors" has been put up at the office of the party's deputy leader Michelle O'Neill. > >The banner was stuck to the office shutters after O'Neill laid a laurel wreath at the Cenotaph at Belfast City Hall on Sunday, becoming the first senior Sinn Féin figure to take part in an official Remembrance ceremony. > >The banner - which was put up at the office O'Neill shares with Mid Ulster MP Cathal Mallaghan in Cookstown in County Tyrone - featured the word "traitors" alongside bloody handprints and a poppy. > >The sign is being treated as a "hate-motivated incident", police have said. > >Asked about the sign, O'Neill said it was "difficult" to hear criticism about her decision to attend the commemoration but she had a role to play. > >"I've committed to being a first minister for all and I will live up to that at every turn," she said.

> A former director at the tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) was handed a role on an influential expert committee advising the UK government on cancer risks, the Observer can reveal. > > Ruth Dempsey, the ex-director of scientific and regulatory affairs, spent 28 years at PMI before being appointed to the UK Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (CoC). > > The committee’s role is to provide ministers with independent advice. Yet since taking up the position in February 2020, Dempsey has continued to be paid by PMI for work including authoring a sponsored paper about regulatory strategies for heated tobacco products. > > She also owns shares in the tobacco giant – whose products include Marlboro cigarettes and IQOS heated tobacco sticks – and receives a PMI pension. On social media she continues to engage with senior staff at the company, including liking LinkedIn posts for the chief communications officer and the vice-president of public affairs. > > There is no suggestion that Dempsey has acted improperly or failed to declare her interests, which are listed in committee documents. She said she had always complied with the rules and that her contributions to the CoC were based on her scientific training and “decades of experience in the field”. She also said she was “no longer a representative of the tobacco industry” given she had retired and had disclosed details of her career and financial interests during the application process. > […] > Prior to Dempsey’s appointment, the CoC was involved in reviews of both e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, two of PMI’s product lines. > > Dempsey is believed to have been appointed to the committee following an evaluation and interview conducted by a three-person panel, including a Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) official, after stepping down from her full-time role with PMI to establish her own toxicology consultancy in the summer of 2019. > […] > Dempsey said she was “very sorry if anyone feels that my presence on the committee is inappropriate”. > > When she joined she did not have any active consultancy agreements with PMI but said the two she has had since had been properly declared. She also declared potential conflicts of interest when topics arose “that could be related to work I was doing as a consultant to any company”. > > “In the five years that I have been a member there has been no topic related to tobacco products. If there had been, I certainly would declare my conflict of interest and would always follow the guidance of the committee chair regarding participation,” she said. She added that she had “never passed confidential or privileged information to PMI, and would certainly never do so”.

I thought this bit from the article was interesting:

>Dr Karin von Hippel, the director of the Royal United Services Institute thinktank, said... “It’s important for the United Kingdom and the EU to mend fences and forge a stronger relationship now that Trump has won... America will no longer be a reliable partner for any European country, including the UK..."

People who have nothing and nowhere to go, do what it takes to survive? I'm shocked!

> Donald Trump has been invited to address the UK parliament next year, Nigel Farage has claimed, saying Britain must “roll out the red carpet” for the US president-elect. > >The Reform UK leader said Lindsay Hoyle was an improvement on the previous Commons speaker, John Bercow, because he had already invited Trump to parliament next year. Farage told his Reform party’s Welsh rally: “I do think having Sir Lindsay Hoyle there as the speaker compared to that ghastly little pipsqueak Bercow that went before is an improvement. > >“And indeed, he’s already invited Donald Trump to come and speak to both Houses of Parliament next year.” > > Hoyle’s spokesperson and the Commons both declined to comment on the claim. Trump did not address parliament the first time he was president between 2016 and 2020 after Bercow made clear he was strongly opposed to the prospect. > >Trump was invited to the UK for a state visit in 2017, but in an extraordinary intervention Bercow said he was against Trump addressing parliament as part of the visit. > >The former speaker told MPs that addressing the Lords and the Commons was “an earned honour”, not an “automatic right”.

> When he was a backbench MP in 2018, David Lammy described Trump as a "tyrant" and "a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath". > > But in his first interview since Trump's victory, he told the BBC's Newscast podcast the president-elect was "someone that we can build a relationship with in our national interest". > > Lammy praised his election campaign as "very well run", adding that: "I felt in my bones that there could be a Trump presidency." > […] > Pressed over whether he had changed his mind, Lammy said the remarks were "old news" and you would "struggle to find any politician" who had not said some "pretty ripe things" about Trump in the past. > > "In that period, particularly with people on Twitter, lots of things were said about Donald Trump," he said. > > "I think that what you say as a backbencher and what you do wearing the real duty of public office are two different things. > > "And I am foreign secretary. There are things I know now that I didn't know back then." > > Asked in if Trump brought up his previous comments when the pair met for dinner in New York in September, Lammy said: "Not even vaguely." > > "I know this is a talking point today, but in a world where there's war in Europe, where there's a tremendous loss of life in the Middle East, where the US and the UK genuinely have a special relationship, where we got someone who's about to become again, the US president, who has experience of doing the job last time round, we will forge common interests," he said. > > "We will agree and align on much and where we disagree, we'll have those conversations as well, most often in private." > […] > But during the election campaign, [Trump] vowed to dramatically increase taxes, or tariffs, on foreign goods imported into the US. > > Such a move could hit billions of pounds' worth of British exports, including Scotch whisky, pharmaceutical products, and airplane parts. > > Asked if the UK would seek a special trade arrangement so there were no extra tariffs on British exports to the US, Lammy said: "We will seek to ensure and to get across to the United States, and I believe that they would understand this, that hurting your closest allies cannot be in your medium or long-term interests." > > Lammy also said Trump was "correct" in his argument that Europe had fallen short on defence spending. > > He called for a “clear” pledge from European governments to boosting military spending but could not say when the government would reach its target of spending 2.5% GDP on defence.

At least one good thing happened today: Starmer's government published an improved ministerial code.

Seems apt to post this today

The DWP confirms that draconian ‘savings’ are coming down the track. Are we a nation that will repair hospitals, but not help a nurse with long Covid?

In the days after the budget, the headlines were dominated by talk of Rachel Reeves’s “tax and spend” bonanza. The message was clear: austerity is officially over. When there was concern about squeezed incomes, it was solely for workers. As the Mail front page put it: “Reeves’ £40bn tax bombshell for Britain’s strivers”. Almost a week later, there has still barely been a word about the policy set to hit the group long scapegoated as Britain’s skivers: the billions of pounds’ worth of benefit cuts for disabled people.

Making up just a couple of lines in a 77-minute speech, you’d have been forgiven for dozing past Reeves’ blink-and-you’d-miss-it bombshell. With a record number of Britons off work with long-term illness, the government will need to “reduce the benefits bill”, she said, before noting ministers had “inherited” the Conservatives’ plans to reform the work capability assessment (WCA). That plan, let’s not forget, was to take up to £4,900 a year each from 450,000 people who are too sick or disabled to work – a move that the Resolution Foundation says would “degrade living standards” for families already on some of the lowest incomes in the country.

That’s on top of Tory proposals to tighten eligibility for personal independence payments (Pip) – which Labour has been consulting on since the election – that would push the cuts to a steep £3bn.

“We will deliver those savings as part of our fundamental reforms to the health and disability benefits system that the work and pensions secretary [Liz Kendall] will bring forward,” Reeves went on. It turns out austerity isn’t over for everyone.

It’s no wonder that many disabled people – and charities and journalists for that matter – thought this meant Labour would implement the outgoing Tory policies. In fact, the government has no such plan. When I spoke to the Department for Work and Pensions, it confirmed it will make the same “savings” the last government committed to – but it cannot as yet say how those savings will be made.

A spokesperson confirmed to me that the WCA needs to be “reformed or replaced as part of a proper plan to genuinely support disabled people into work – bringing down the benefits bill and ensuring we continue to deliver the savings set out by the previous government. But these sorts of changes shouldn’t be made in haste. That’s why we’re taking the time to review this in the round before setting out next steps on our approach.” When I pressed, they added that changes to the WCA – whatever they may be – will come into effect in early 2025.

There is something faintly ludicrous about the government announcing billions of pounds of cuts to disability benefits before working out how it is going to do it, akin to the Child Catcher wielding a big net and not caring who it is he traps. It is right that the WCA – long known to be a dangerously faulty assessment – is consigned to the scrapheap. But “reform” should not mean less funding, and reducing funding should not be the purpose of reform.

Much like when George Osborne aimed to cut the disability benefits bill by a fifth, “welfare reform” based on arbitrary cost-cutting says the quiet part out loud: benefits won’t be awarded based on who needs them – just on what they cost. It is social security by spreadsheet, severing the social contract that promises the state will be there in times of sickness and disability, and adding a footnote that says, “but only if we can afford it”. That last week’s budget revealed huge investment for infrastructure at the same time as disability benefit cuts exposes how even the affordability argument is largely fabricated. There is money to fix hospital buildings but not to feed a nurse bedbound with long Covid.

The financial impact of such “reform” on those relying on benefits is well established but the psychological toll should not be underestimated. Since gaining power, Labour has drip-fed the rightwing press sound bites and op-eds on potential benefit cuts, leaving news outlets to speculate wildly for clicks. The budget’s half-announcement has only added to the confusion and fear, issuing vague dog whistles of “fraud” and high “benefit bills” while forcing millions of people to wait months to find out if they will lose the money they need to live.

It is not simply that such delays create uncertainty for those affected, they also create space and legitimacy for a politics of resentment and prejudice. In the days after the budget, Reform MP Rupert Lowe took to X to list some of the health conditions people receive Pip for and pronounce to his followers which ones were least-deserving. Hours later, former Sunday Times political editor Isabel Oakeshott went on TalkTV to call disability benefit recipients “parasites”.

It would be easy to say this stuff is repulsive – it is – but it is also a very real symptom of years of stagnating wages, high bills, pressured public services and a media ecosystem that too often distorts and divides. Crudely, these conditions do two things to a population that we are already seeing fester in Britain: they make some people sick and reliant on the safety net – and they turn other people against them.

By the end of this parliament, the Office for Budget Responsibility says, half of all claims for the main benefit will be on health grounds, as the impact of NHS delays, a pandemic and increasing poverty continues to bite. As Labour mulls over what it will cost our society to provide this support, it might be worth considering what it would cost us not to. That particular price cannot be measured in bills and debt but is altogether more ruinous: a nation doomed to repeat the same mistakes, growing ever meaner and colder towards those who have less.

That Kemi Badenoch – a small-state zealot whose culture war targets include autistic children – is now leader of the opposition only reinforces the urgency of a Labour government that stokes the best, not worst, of our instincts. By its own timeline, the party now has a few months to hunt for its conscience. Disabled people can only hope it finds it.

Trump isn't over the line yet, but Starmer seems confident enough that Trump has won.

> Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is in the US where he is due to attend an election day party at Donald Trump’s Florida home in Mar-a-Lago. In an interview with the Telegraph, he has said that Trump, who is a friend, should accept defeat if he loses the presidential election. (See 10am.)

> But Farage said he expected Trump to win. And he said he was particularly excited by the prospect of a Trump victory because Trump has said he will put Elon Musk, the Tesla founder and X owner, in charge of a government efficiency commission. Farage said that Musk would slash government spending, and that this would provide a blueprint for what Reform UK would propose for Britain. He told the Telegraph:

> "This is the sexy bit: Elon comes in and takes a knife to the deep state. Just like when he bought Twitter he sacked 80 per cent of the staff.

> There are going to be mass lay-offs, whole departments closing and I’m hoping and praying that’s the blueprint for what we then do on our side of the pond.

> Because that’s what Reform UK believes in - that we’re over-bureaucratised and none of it works. This assault on the bureaucratic state is the thing that’s really exciting.

> They’ll all be gone. They’ll all be fired. Why do we need Whitehall with all these useless, ghastly Marxists? Universities have all become madrassas of Marxism. The whole thing is appalling.

> Trump’s first term taking on the deep state was impossible because they had no idea how it worked; he finished up with a lot of people around him who weren’t supporters and who were imposed upon him.

> They didn’t know an American president has the power to appoint 3,000 people. This time they have been working really hard on that for 18 months."

> Rightwingers regularly complain that the state is too large (Kemi Badenoch believes this too), but it’s unusual to argue that Musk’s management of Twitter has been a success. Since he took over, it has lost three quarters of its value, equivalent to a sum worth around $30bn. That is partly because, after Musk sacked most of the moderators, people were less willing to use and advertise on the site.

A Jewish academic who grew up in Israel was arrested by London's Metropolitan police following a speech he gave at a pro-Palestine demonstration in the British capital, during which he said that Israel "cannot win against Hamas".

Haim Bresheeth, a child of Holocaust survivors and the founder of the Jewish Network for Palestine, was arrested during a demonstration outside the residence of Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely in north London.

In a video recording of Bresheeth’s arrest, a police officer informs him that he is being arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 for “making a hate speech”.

“Israel has not achieved any of its declared aims, either in Gaza in Lebanon in, in Iran or anywhere else,” Bresheeth said in his speech. “What has it achieved? Murder, mayhem, genocide, racism, destruction, this is what they’re good at,” Bresheeth said. “But they cannot fight the resistance, they have lost every single time. “They cannot win against Hamas, they cannot win against Hezbollah, they cannot win against the Houthis. They cannot win against the united resistance to the genocide they have started.”

I thought we would eventually see this race-baiter come out, but I didn't expect it to be even before the announcement of Badenoch's election was made.

The asylum system would “descend into chaos” if Labour refused to open more hotels for people seeking refuge in the UK, a Home Office minister has told the Guardian.

Angela Eagle, the minister for borders, security and asylum, said officials had been forced to find more private accommodation for new arrivals and blamed the backlog of tens of thousands of cases built up under the last government.

The government’s decision to open asylum hotels despite Keir Starmer’s pledge that he would close them have been condemned by the Tories and Reform.

In Labour’s election manifesto, Starmer said he would “end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds”.

In her first public comments on the development, Eagle said ministers had no choice but to make the temporary move after discovering nearly 120,000 unprocessed asylum claims after Labour took power.