24 Jul 2025 13 min read Resistance

“Terrorism, weapons inspectors and RAF Fairford” — dispatches from the Anti-war movement

In this insightful podcast, Roma explores the history of the Anti-War movement with interviews from activists who campaigned at RAF airbases.

Audio piece by Roma Robinson | The Ryse
July 2025

Listen to the podcast on Spotify, Apple music or through this embedded player

The Transcript

Preamble:

This podcast features stories from anti-war activists who took action at military bases before us, and was recorded between the 25th of June and the 2nd of July 2025. As of the fifth of July 2025, Palestine Action has now been proscribed, with MPS voting 385 votes to 26 against the protest group.

This update is being recorded on the 6th of July, and yesterday 27 people were arrested for peacefully protesting the proscription in London.

On July 3, 2025, MP Zarah Sultana announced her resignation from the Labour party after an impassioned speech during the debate over the proscription of Palestine Action.

Zarah is in talks to establish a new political party, a progressive alliance of grassroots independent and socialist activists to challenge the government in 2026.

Jeremy Corbyn and other Independent MPs have also been linked to this organisation.

The ruling on Palestine Action is further repression of dissent and could be dangerous - many non-affiliated Palestine Solidarity groups are being treated by some members of the public with the same suspicion.

This ruling, in criminalising demonstrations of support risks items like Keffiyehs, Palestinian flags and slogans like "from the river to the sea" being criminalised alongside it.

It puts not just those taking action under the name of Palestine Action at risk but all those speaking out in solidarity with Palestine. Which is why we have to stand by each other - we have a duty to stand by what we know to be right, to back the justice of the people not of the state.

This podcast interviews two incredible older activists, who can tell us the stories of rising police repression and political influence of the arms trade.

And I think that through learning our history, we can imagine something else. And if we can imagine it, then maybe we can bring it about.

Palestine Action has been threatened with proscription — the banning of a group out of concern that it encourages terrorism — by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, following a break-in at RAF Brize Norton where activists spread red paint over two planes and onto their engines.

Six people have been arrested by counter-terrorism police and a legal challenge to the proscription has been launched.

The aftermath of this news saw national mobilisation and many groups condemning the proposed ban.

Anti-war action like this at military bases isn't new, but something has changed in the Government response.

I spoke to Dave and Juliet, two veteran anti-war activists to ask them just how much has changed.

Dave Cockroft

Dave Cockroft is a craftsman, a woodworker and spoon carver from Stroud in the Southwest. In 2002 he was active in the Anti Iraq War movement.

“We formed a group called the Gloucestershire Weapons Inspectors and we dressed up in imaginary inspector costumes and with equipment made from bits of bicycles and old vacuum cleaners and we went in a minibus over to the main gates at the Fairford airbase and performed a piece where we requested to be let in to inspect the base for weapons of mass destruction.”

The Gloucestershire Weapons Inspectors were a parody of the UN Inspectors who failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, proving the basis for the war illegal.

By inspecting the US base, Dave and his fellow demonstrators were refusing the double standards that do not hold Western governments to account and making the point that if it was dangerous for Iraq to have weapons of mass destruction, the US having them was not any better.

Dave also organised monthly marches from Fairford town centre to the front gate of the air base, peacefully walking the mile down Horcourt Road.

These marches came to a head in March 2023 just as the war began in earnest.

“And these monthly marches that were happening, protest marches which, which came from the middle of Fairford up to the main gate, kind of grew in scale and included again, you know, people were coming from London and from Oxford and other places and some of them again were more experienced campaigners with direct action and things would happen like the the wire, the perimeter wire fence, was breached once or twice and people were able to run around on the runways, which was quite amusing.

“And it was relatively lightly handled by the police at that point. People were just kicked out and it all built up eventually to a march called called Flowers to Fairford.

“The notion was we'd bring flowers. That turned into a very big protest with about 5,000 people and enormous police presence, like about a thousand police and there were mounted police and police with dogs and there were helicopters flying overhead. It did feel a little bit like a war zone in itself.”

The anti Iraq war movement was one of the first protest movements to be policed using anti terrorism legislation, the legacy of which we can see in the modern response to Palestine Action.

Dave recalls the way that it was used at Fairford.

“As far as we knew, it was the first time there was relatively new legislation.

“And essentially, you know, I think when, when that sort of legislation goes through Parliament, the argument is that it will only be used in appropriate circumstances, but once it becomes a power — a statutory power — for the police, they'll use it in other circumstances.

“So they were able to invoke stop and search powers essentially just to intimidate and hassle the protests.”

As home to nuclear capable B52 bombers and one of four military bases in the world with a Runway large enough to fly B2 stealth planes, Fairford was a hub of anti war activity.

In March 2003, five people broke into Fairford with intentions to destroy planes and parts of the Runway. A couple even succeeded, dealing £10,000 worth of damage.

They were charged with criminal damage, but argued that because the war in Iraq was illegal, they should not be convicted because they were trying to stop a much larger crime.

The jury found them not guilty. The most severe punishment handed out was a five month curfew order, a far cry from the indefinite detention under the Terrorism act that some Palestine Action defendants have faced.

Dave believes that the era of this defence is, is over:

“I suspect that those folks, you know, that that defence of ‘preventing, a greater harm’ has been outlawed now. In fact, any attempt to explain why you did things seems to have been outlawed as an activist.

“So I think it's just been made much harder to find any effective way to protest, you know, and we all know asking your MP and writing letters and the things you're officially meant to do, signing petitions, orders, bugger all.

“So you're left with a sense of what is it we do then? How do we engage with a democratic process in any meaningful way?”

Is this something that worries you?

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Right at the moment with, Palestine Action could become a, prescribed organisation within a couple of weeks now.

“And that's again, that feels like. Because clearly they're not a terrorist organisation, but they're going to be classified as one. And that's, to me, a misuse of that power.

“It's a bit like I was saying with the stop and search that was used on us, that that was terrorism powers used out of context because clearly we weren't terrorists.”

Juliet's story

There have been generations of peace activists at Fairford and I was invited to meet some of them at a demonstration that campaign group Drone wars were hosting outside the main gates.

Protest banners at RAF Fairford (photo credit Roma Robinson)

While there, I, met a legend of the anti war movement, Juliet, who made sneaking into air bases a hobby.

So, Juliet, can you tell me how many times you've been arrested?

“160 times or more! Gave up at 160.

“My first climb was into RAF Greenham in the times when the cruise missiles were going out of Greenham but the bylaws had failed.

“So although they would arrest you for being inside, they could only do a summons prosecution, they couldn't prosecute unless, the bylaws succeeded and eventually they did fall.

“So I spent a lot of time learning how to climb in, because then you do no criminal damage, so there's nothing for them to arrest you for, they can't prosecute you.

“And so through the years, I learned I had actually, instant access to about any base that I was interested in as long as I climbed.

“At first I still got arrested, but over the years they got to know me and they knew I didn't do criminal damage and they knew they didn't have anything to prosecute me for.

“So eventually I would just be walked out. I went into Aldermaston, the atomic weapons establishment at Aldermaston, on a daily basis, sometimes just to walk because you're —

“They have to. They cannot ignore you, they have to acknowledge that you're there. And in a way, you are bringing some citizen basis into a military place.”

Juliet has not climbed since 2008.

“Gradually, they got more and more laws against it. It's a horrible business.”

So when was your last climb?

“2008.”

And why did you stop then?

“I was at Aldermalston. They finally brought in some bylaws that worked. They also had the Serious Organised Crime and Police act. ”

“And my son died and the combination, and I was getting old. I asked her if she thought she'd be able to get into RAF Fairford, pointing to the 10 foot fence topped with coils of razor wire.

“Yes, Often there's enough of a gap between those horrible spikes that go up if you're slim, and the barbed wire to get through — or — you climb up, you get hold of that out bit, and you wriggle, you get in there…

“I did so much, but it wasn't that difficult. But, you know, and you look for the right place. Like this corner bit is easier, much easier. You've got a huge gap there. Although how you get down. Yeah, you just look.”

Juliet became such a constant fixture inside military bases. This slight woman who scaled the fence with bare feet and leather gloves, walking on the grass, peeking in where she wasn't welcome.

RAF Aldermaston hosts the Atomic Weapons Establishment, the military of Defence research facility on nuclear weapons.

There, she became so well known that she told me they had a training exercise called the “Juliet Protocol” for a trespasser on the grounds.

“I went over the. The huge fence at Aldermaston, which is really high and difficult, and the car stopped on the inside and this bloke gets out and shouts, what's she doing? And I said, don't worry, the police know. And he said, but you hurt yourself. And I just laughed and I said, what are you doing here? Then he was a worker at Aldermastern that makes weapons of mass destruction and he's worried I might catch myself on the reservoir. So he said, oh, well, actually.

“And he tried to. And he realised it was lame. I don't know what he was going to say. It wasn't anything to do with the actual weapons, but it doesn't matter. He was part of Aldermaster. He was part of the process of making weapons of mass destruction.”

Whichever way about it, action has become much harder.

Human rights groups Liberty and Amnesty International have condemned escalations of in protest policing in the uk, and laws like the Police Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill place further restrictions on these rights. This brings us back to the proscription of Palestine action, which at time of writing is projected to be in place by the 4th of July.

This could lead to members of the group or those who display support for them being handed prison sentences of up to 14 years.

But as, Juliet proves, it wasn't always like this. She might have been arrested over 160 times, but. But she was not sent to prison for any significant stretch and was mostly released without charge or follow up.

An anonymous source within the Home Office told the Guardian there were concerns about the ban among civil servants.

The government claims the group has a long history of unacceptable criminal damage and must be prescribed to protect national security. But those in support of the group argue that this is an overreach of power and that the real crime lies with what many international courts and humanitarian organisations have named as a genocide unfolding in Gaza committed by the Israeli military.

At time of recording on the afternoon of Wednesday 2nd July, a motion for the prescription is pending in the House of Commons and an urgent High Court hearing challenging the ban is scheduled for Friday. The situation is ongoing, but it's worth remembering that it hasn't always been like this and it doesn't have to be now.

Roma Robinson is a member of the RYSE (Radical Youth Space for Educations).

Amplify Stroud is supported by Dialect rural writers collective. Dialect offers mentorship, encouragement and self-study courses as well as publishing.

You can find out more at https://www.dialect.org.uk/

The Transcript

Dave Cockroft

Juliet's story

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