Several hundred Defend Our Juries demonstrators gathered outside Westminster magistrates’ court yesterday, many of whom had been told they’d have a hearing that day. They were among over 1,500 people listed by the court to appear on Thursday charged with holding bits of paper that had seven words written on them: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”

That’s already mad across multiple dimensions. What is justice when a court decides that it can sort the futures of more than a thousand people in a single working day? And what is reality when words on paper are the reason a person is drawn into the criminal justice system? And what is *terrorism* when it’s both so serious that you can get dragged off for holding your sign by a gang of six or eight police officers, but also so meaningless that over 1,500 alleged terrorist offenders can be processed on a day trip to London?

To add to the crackedmosphere of the whole thing, more than a few grey-haired terrorists received court letters cooked up by Kafka. “ATTENDANCE REQUIRED AT COURT,” they proclaimed, “You must appear at the court”. Then, two lines down, pitifully: “Please do not attend.”

It’s rare to see the courts send begging letters for non-attendance, especially for the weighty and enormous crime of a terrorist offence. The Metropolitan police also treated the prospect of possibly the largest ever gathering of alleged terrorist-offenders in UK history – outside a major courtroom no less – with equal seriousness.

Helicopters? SWAT teams? Squads of crack team negotiators primed to bargain the signs out of the hands of retired vicars?

Em, no.

“This time,” the Met warned in a statement about Defend Our Juries, “They have called for people to stand on a stage to be erected outside the court, verbally expressing their support.”

Dust off Guantanamo Bay, lads.

Over the next few hours, I watched the police begin arresting a total of 152 people, mostly, they say, for breaching Section 12 of the Terrorism Act. That’s a part of the law that makes it a crime to invite or encourage others to support a proscribed organisation. Some of those arrested did that, proclaiming themselves – occasionally in song – to be members of Palestine Action, and inviting their arresting officers to join the club too.

Others, though, appeared to me to get arrested simply for being there. One woman loudly and angrily demanded that police tell her exactly under what subsection of Section 12 – which carries a punishment of up to 14 years in prison – she was being arrested. They wouldn’t or couldn’t. Another told me that all she’d done was clap when someone else was arrested.

Is applause terrorism now? Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me.

As everyone knows, because it’s so embarrassing, over 3,500 people have so far been arrested for holding signs. That’s an offence under Section 13 of the Act, and carries a maximum six month sentence, meaning it can be dealt with fairly quickly by a magistrates’ court.

The new, heftier Section 12 offences allegedly being committed by Defend Our Juries protesters could be heard in crown courts. That would mean a huge influx of daft cases into an already struggling system, all of them involving jury trials. It’s hard to imagine panels of ordinary Brits agreeing with the government that NHS nurses, elderly vicars, social workers and Quakers are the true face of terrorism. If you think these scenes are ridiculous now, just wait until you see the bill for millions and millions of pounds that’ll be racked up on a never-ending series of the most expensive acquittals this country has ever seen.

All for words.

Burnham should be looking at all this and thinking: why should I pay for the last idiot’s blunders? And the saxophones are getting louder. Yesterday’s arrests made it into the Washington Post, adding to our growing global reputation for unadulterated batshittery. Following the release of video of Jonathon Porritt, a former adviser to King Charles, getting arrested, even the Daily Mail’s Andrew Neil had a public cringe. And UAE paper The National reported that almost half of all terror-related arrests since 9/11 have been made in the last twelve months.

As yesterday afternoon’s arrests stacked up, it was announced that the Supreme Court will hear Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori’s case against the proscription of the group this autumn. That’s her last legal stop on UK soil, and so also Burnham’s last chance to free himself from the Cooper curse before it hits the European Court of Human Rights. The chapter on Britain’s (hopefully brief) descent into dystopian madness is still being written. The only question is: will it be Starmer’s or Burnham’s?

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