Starmer's Quaker Raid Is STILL BACKFIRING HILARIOUSLY!

Right, so Keir Starmer’s weaponisation of the police to crackdown on our right to protest, as exemplified now in the egregious scenes at a Quaker Meeting House in Westminster, a place of worship, have been rightfully shredded, not least by the Youth Demand activists assembled there, planning a protest in response to the UK’s complicity in Gaza and Keir Starmer’s decimation of environmental concerns, but also by the Quakers themselves, all resulting in a big boost for Youth Demand, bad headlines for Keir Starmer and likely more lost votes ahead of the upcoming local elections. But that wasn’t the end of the story. Keir Starmer didn’t stop there and neither did the Met police.
The very next day, the homes of several of those Youth Demand activists in attendance at the Quaker Meeting house were raided, more arrests were made, the appalling scenes and appalled reaction of the British public became doubled down on to the point the Quakers yesterday organised and carried out their own protest on the doorstep of the Met Police, joined by several members of the Green party, who seem to be the only ones determined to back up their opposition to government crackdown with some meaningful action. The more Starmer is trying to clamp down on protest, the more people will join the growing protest against them.
Right, so in a democratic society, the right to protest is sacrosanct—a fundamental human right enshrined in international law and a cornerstone of civil liberties. Yet, under Keir Starmer’s Labour government, dissent, civil disobedience, peaceful protest, is increasingly criminalised, with peaceful activists treated as threats to national security. The recent police raid on a Youth Demand meeting at the Quaker House in Westminster was widely reported and condemned, but that was followed by further arrests and home invasions targeting activists, which went virtually ignored and exposes all the more the alarming escalation in state repression under the Starmer regime. That this goes unreported by so many is a grotesque failure to hold power to account by the media, speaking more of collusion after they felt they’d done the bare minimum to cover their own backsides.
While headlines briefly flickered with news of the Quaker House arrests, the subsequent police operations—where officers stormed the homes of Youth Demand activists—went ignored. This silence is complicity. By refusing to hold the government accountable, the mainstream media enables Starmer’s authoritarianism, allowing the suppression of protest to continue unchallenged.
Well it isn’t going entirely unchallenged, because the fallout from the Youth Demand raids, the treatment of those arrested and the Quakers’ defiance in response, continue to hammer Starmer’s authoritarianism because he will be held to account mainstream media or no. Starmer’s government, has proven itself to be far from the progressive alternative to Tory rule it claimed to be, far from anything resembling change as they claimed to be all about and have instead embraced all the same draconian tactics the Tories brought into law, criminalising dissent and intimidating activists before protests even take place and being even more vociferous about it than they were.
So as we know, just over a week ago now, Metropolitan Police officers stormed a Youth Demand meeting at the Quaker House in London, arresting several activists on suspicion of "conspiracy to cause public nuisance.” They were in actuality sat planning a protest, apparently illegal these days, whilst eating hummus and breadsticks. The group, planning a campaign for climate justice and Palestinian solidarity, had done nothing beyond that—yet in Starmer’s Britain, even the planning of dissent is now treated as a crime and the police will shamefully acquiesce to this abuse.
The optics were obviously appalling. Police entering a space traditionally associated with pacifism and non-violence as per the ethos of the Quaker movement, ending the meeting, and making arrests in a place of worship. Treated like terrorists for discussing protest tactics.
The raid was of course entirely legal under the Public Order Act 2023, now enthusiastically enforced by Labour. This legislation grants police sweeping powers to preemptively arrest individuals suspected of planning disruptive protests, which is so dangerously vague a provision that it can effectively criminalise any form of dissent before it happens, should the police deem it fit to do so.
Now While that initial raid made brief headlines, the story did not end there, though for the mainstream media it did, job done, they’d washed their faces, God forbid they hold the government accountable for further actions. The following day, police conducted further raids on the homes of Youth Demand activists as this excerpt from Socialist Worker explains:
‘In a separate incident at around 8.00am this morning, police arrested Youth Demand supporter Eddie Whittingham at home in Exeter. Eddie has since been released without charge. Two other supporters were arrested at unknown locations.
A Youth Demand spokesperson said:
‘There are thousands of young people who are horrified by what the government is doing to facilitate genocide and who know that they have been betrayed as their future is [effed].
We will not be silenced. Young people all over the country are coming together to shut London down day after day throughout April.
We refuse to be ruled by liars and war criminals. We will not let them get away with it. We refuse to be ignored. It’s time for young people to take to the streets day after day and shut London down.’
Where the likes of Socialist Worker and The Canary have kept up with this story, the mainstream media dropped it almost entirely. Richard Sanders of Middle East Eye picked up on this ina comment he posted on Twitter in the last 24 hours saying:
‘I'm amazed this is not getting more coverage. On Friday and over the weekend police officers raided the homes of around eight young people active in Youth Demand, a non-violent organisation which campaigns around climate change and Palestine. This is in the wake of, and in addition to, the much publicised raid on a Youth Demand welcome meeting at a Quaker meeting house last Thursday night when 6 young women were arrested. A number of these young people live with their parents, who describe receiving visits from 8 police officers who conducted highly intrusive searches of their homes. The young people were arrested. A number were held overnight before being released on bail. Their electronic devices and other possessions have been seized. This is an astonishing over reaction by the police. Please publicise.’
Please publicise indeed, because we’re having to be our own media again clearly.
This media silence is telling. When the state targets activists in their homes, which is a clear and blatant intimidation tactic—the lack of scrutiny suggests either institutional bias, government bias, or fear of government backlash on themselves and whichever way you call it, however you want to read that, it’s a total failure.
Whether you agree with the protesters, agree with their points, the purpose of Youth Demand or not, if you don’t agree that they have a right to do and say what they are doing and saying, raising awareness over climate change, telling the truth about the situation in Palestine and the Middle East, then you are part of the problem. Protest is not a privilege granted by the state, it is a human right that had to be fought for and won. Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees freedom of assembly, yet Starmer’s government is eroding this right with alarming speed without any right to do so.
The Youth Demand arrests follow a pattern of escalating repression in recent years. Under the Tories, we saw the prosecution of Insulate Britain activists and the use of anti-protest injunctions. Now, Labour has gone further, treating protest organisers as conspirators as we’ve seen in the London Gaza protests rather than citizens exercising democratic rights that they are well within their rights to peacefully exercise.
Therefore these crackdowns are not about maintaining public order, they are about suppressing dissent and clamping down on issues the mainstream media meekly toes the line over that others will not and as such these suppressions are backfiring badly and deservedly on Keir Starmer’s government. Youth Demand’s membership has surged since the arrests and continues to do so, proving that state repression simply doesn’t work and at least some people in this country are prepared to stand up for what is right.
Perhaps the most damning indictment of Starmer’s authoritarianism however has actually come from the Quakers themselves. Just yesterday, Quakers and allies staged a protest outside New Scotland Yard, condemning the police’s heavy-handed tactics standing in silent protest, one of 25 silent protests held nationwide, where for 40 minutes the Quakers and others, notably 6 Green Party politicians, Grren MPs Carla Denyer, Sian Berry and Ellie Chowns, alongside Green Peer Jenny Jones and Green London Assembly members Zack Polanski and Zoe Garbett also attended, all just standing or sitting there in silent condemnation.
A spokesperson for Quakers of Britain said:
‘We’ve been warning since these laws were proposed that this is about the kind of country, the kind of world, we want to live in. Quakers believe that all people are equal, and for that to be a lived reality, we need laws that enable participation rather than suppress it.’
True solidarity and this solidarity is crucial. When even pacifist groups like the Quakers feel compelled to protest police actions, and to be fair to them, they have been protesting the Public Order Act since the Tories introduced it, it signals a profound breakdown in trust between the state and civil society.
Keir Starmer’s Labour government promised change, but the only change has been an increase in state attacks on peaceful dissent, an assault on protest rights that exposes the deeply authoritarian streak that is one of keir Starmer’s seemingly biggest traits. The raids on Youth Demand—first at the Quaker House, then in activists’ homes—demonstrate a state willing to use intimidation to stifle dissent and abuse human rights, a government led by a man who purportedly once was a human rights lawyer, the sickest joke of all.
The media’s failure to fully cover this story is a dereliction of duty, so we need to make sure their jobs get done for them, there’s no room in a country veering as far to the right as this one is for that to fail to happen. Democracy withers in darkness, and if journalists will not hold power to account, then we, the ordinary working class public of the UK must, for all our sakes.
Youth Demand’s response has been defiant. Despite arrests, despite raids, they continue to organise, they will keep fighting, therefore so must we.
For more on this story, more detail of the Quaker House raid if you haven’t caught all of the details of this story previously then please do check out this story here as your recommended next watch. Please do also hit like, share and subscribe if you have not already done so, so as to ensure you don’t miss out on all new content published daily as well as supporting the channel at the same time which is very much appreciated, holding power to account for ordinary working class people and I will hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.