THE authoritarian spectacle of the Metropolitan Police moving in on non-violent protests in support of Palestine Action over the weekend is not without precedent and felt reminiscent of the mass arrests of sit-downs organised by the anti-nuclear Committee of 100 in the early 1960s.

The Committee of 100 – formed in 1960 by the philosopher and writer Bertrand Russell and Revd Michael Scott – was a movement of non-violent resistance to nuclear weapons.

The strategy was to organise protests with enough people to overwhelm the police who had been ordered to arrest them.

Several attended the first protest in February 1961 outside Whitehall in central London but numbers fell significantly in a follow-up demonstration the following April.

“The event was saved, at least in terms of the publicity it generated, by the arrest of 800 people who sat down in Whitehall,” wrote Michael Randle in an article in 2020, drawing parallels with the XR protests of that time.

In September 1961 a huge follow-up demonstration was banned by under the 1936 Public Order Act, with more than 1,300 people being arrested.

Committee of 100 staff were later arrested and charged with conspiracy to contravene the Official Secrets Act.

The Labour government said last month that Palestine Action should be proscribed as a “violent organisation” and that anyone holding up placards in support of it is committing an offence under the Terrorism Act.

This does not interfere with the right to protest in support of the Palestinian cause, it insisted.

PA has undeniably broken laws.

But should they – and their mainly elderly supporters – really be considered terrorists?