#Bristol -The Great British Political Pantomime: Protests, Palestine Action, and The Art of the Absurd.
From Bristol's Protest Theatre to Palestine Action Arrests: A Satirical Take on Britain's Absurd Political Scene.
(image: Bristol 24/7)
So, despite my pancreatic and associated lower parts seeming determination to, well, you know, send me off for an eternal journey into the ether, I'm here for yet another few taps on the keyboard, and one I wouldn't have missed for the world! You see, despite yesterday's promise to myself that I would take a more serious tone in writing today's blog on the subject of the so-called anti-migrant protests here in Bristol city centre, little did I foresee that for this city, at least, the comedy would write itself.
And, all it took to send me into virtual hysterics was a mere five seconds of passing the protest site, and the united voices of those chanting, "Free, free Palestine." Now, before I go any further, hands up all of you who would bet your last penny that there was less than one Palestinian migrant residing in this hotel? It's okay, I'll wait. Yes, that is likely the correct answer, and you can keep your hard-earned penny for another day.
Nonetheless, however, the whole thing had been successfully hijacked by a group that had nothing whatsoever to do with the subject of the protest. No, they were just there, presumably because they had nowhere else to go, and, you know, it was good for their egos because riding bicycles around the city centre while waving banners and blowing whistles on a Saturday afternoon just wasn't doing it for them. So, being the attention seekers that they are, what better place to save tyre tread than a ready made protest that wasn't theirs to hijack and make it all about them?
And they’re good at it, I'll give them that. They show up, banners from groups like Stand Up to Racism proudly unfurled, and suddenly, a local argument about the Redcliffe Mercure hotel, used by the Home Office for asylum seekers, isn't a local argument anymore. It's a grand, ideological battle. They take a specific grievance—legitimate or not, you decide—and turn it into a backdrop for their own, far broader narrative. They’re not just counter-protesting; they're essentially holding a press conference on someone else's dime, with the other side’s anger serving as their lighting rig.
They get to make it about anti-fascism and solidarity and the moral high ground, all while someone else is doing the hard work of gathering a crowd. It’s a parasitic form of activism, really. They didn't have to build the stage; they just had to show up and steal the spotlight. And in doing so, they provided me, a cynical man with a wonky pancreas, with a perfectly absurd piece of political theatre.
Whoever in Bristol is a Mr. Bean protégé couldn't have mastered this any better! The whole thing was a masterclass in hijacking the narrative without saying a word that actually belonged there. Just a glorious, bizarre, and utterly illogical performance. And for a moment, it made me forget all about that pancreas of mine. Now that's a powerful kind of humour.
The Rise of the Absurd: Palestine Action, Proscription, and Protest Arrests.
And, just when you couldn't believe things could get any worse, or funnier, depending on your perspective, there's more. Elsewhere, for example, more than 200 people have been arrested for alleged support of Palestine Action. You remember them, don't you? The now 'proscribed terrorist' group who failed miserably when in trying to blow up a bus, they burned their lips on the exhaust pipe, or something equally daft at an RAF base.
Ah, yes. The bus incident. The comedy here, and the reason I’m so tickled, is that while the image of a bus with a singed exhaust pipe is pure genius, it's not all that far from the truth of what actually happened. The government, under Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, has indeed deemed them a 'proscribed terrorist' group, and it's because of actions that, on the face of it, are brilliantly chaotic. The specific one they're referencing is when a bunch of them broke into RAF Brize Norton, the country's largest air force station. They didn't burn their lips on a bus, but they did vandalise two military planes with crowbars and red paint. So, while one might imagine an expertly planned, shadowy operation, the reality is a bunch of people running around an air base with tins of paint, leaving a trail of destruction that looks less like a terrorist plot and more like a scene from a particularly messy episode of a sitcom.
Hundreds of protest arrests have now followed for supporting them, which is a mind-boggling number when you think about it. More than 1,200 people have been arrested since rallies began earlier this week, a government statement said. It’s an almost unbelievable escalation from what, in other contexts, might just be called criminal damage. It just goes to show, doesn’t it? That in this glorious nation, even political terror has a faint whiff of a Fawlty Towers-esque farce about it.
And that's the point, isn't it? It's utterly inescapable. These people are either plain stupid, ignorant, or just both, by entirely missing one valuable and incontrovertible fact: with Palestine Action now a proscribed organisation due to their own criminality, any normal, otherwise sane and rational person would choose to distance themselves from supporting this group. The simple logic would dictate that they’d just break away and form another group to continue peaceful and legitimate protest. But no. They’ve chosen to court arrest, becoming a living, breathing testament to the absurdity of it all. It makes me wonder if they're protesting for the cause, or if the real attraction is the high-stakes drama of being led away by a copper for holding a piece of cardboard. Either way, it's a hell of a show.
Rock Stars, News Headlines, and The Absurdity of Modern Debate.
All of this has become such a bone of contention that one of the Rolling Stones' ex-wives has now become a voice in all of this, well, at least in the 'Independent' newspaper. Or, maybe she's just taking the Mick!
It turns out it’s more than just a passing comment, though. Bianca Jagger, Mick's former missus, has been a tireless campaigner for human rights for decades. So while it makes for a ridiculous headline, her appearance in the paper is a reminder that in this surreal circus of a world, even a former rock star wife is a serious voice of reason, which only adds to the sheer, magnificent absurdity of it all.