Legal Profession Revolt Against The UK Judge Whose Job Is To Protect Israel’s Genocide

Judge Johnson so rigged the trial of anti-genocide activists that 1000s of legal professionals have urged him to step down from the sentencing hearing. But Johnson’s dirty work is not yet complete

SCHEERPOST, Jonathan Cook Substack, June 11, 2026

The trial of the Filton Four reaches its climax on Friday. Judge Jeremy Johnson will decide the sentences of four Palestine Action activists found guilty of criminal damage – after two juries refused to convict them of far more serious charges brought by the British government, via the Crown Prosecution Service.

Keir Starmer’s government failed to secure the convictions for aggravated burglary and violent disorder it so desperately needed. They would have helped retroactively justify its decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation – the first time in British history that a direct action group, which targets property, has been proscribed.

Starmer’s hostility towards Palestine Action is personal. It has been a massive thorn in his side during Israel’s near three-year genocide in Gaza.

From the outset, Starmer suggested that Israel had the “right” to withhold food, water and power from the 2 million Palestinian residents of Gaza – a crime against humanity for which the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is wanted by the International Criminal Court.

Starmer’s complicity in the genocide has only been underscored by Palestine Action, which has targeted Israeli factories operating in the UK run by Elbit Systems that supply Israel’s genocidal army with killer drones for use in Gaza.

The so-called Filton trial derives its name from an Elbit factory in the Filton neighbourhood of Bristol that Palestine Action targeted in August 2024. Efforts to destroy these Israeli drones came at a time when Starmer was under enormous popular – if little political – pressure to end British arms sales to Israel.

PR crisis

Proscription, however, has not worked out well for Starmer. It has entangled him in a self-inflicted public relations crisis of almighty proportions.

Palestine Action activists have been held in remand without trial for an unprecedented period of time, far in excess of the normal maximums, and in especially harsh conditions that have treated them as if they were terrorism suspects, even though their arrests long precede the group’s proscription last year.

These sustained abuses led to a prolonged hunger strike, and a desperate government and media campaign to justify their mistreatment.

Proscription has led to thousands of people, most of them elderly and including upstanding members of British society – from magistrates and doctors to army veterans – facing convictions for “supporting terrorism” for holding up placards stating: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

This popular backlash cornered the High Court into declaring the proscription unlawful – a decision the government is appealing. That has led to another unprecedented situation: police are still arresting people for holding the placards, despite the courts ruling that the basis for such arrests is unlawful.

The law has never looked more of an ass………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Rigged trials

Judge Johnson has done precisely nothing to counter the overwhelming impression that the Filton activists’ prosecutions were entirely political. He quite openly rigged both trials in manifold ways, as former British ambassador Craig Murray has set out………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Gagging order

But even with the convictions for criminal damage secured under these rigged conditions, Judge Johnson is still in a position to cause more harm to the rule of law. He is due to sentence the Filton Four on Friday……………………………………………………………………………………..

Remember, all this is happening as Starmer’s government makes unprecedented moves to end many jury trials in Britain, leaving us to the mercy of judges like Jeremy Johnson……………………………………………………………………………..

If this is all starting to look like theatre, that is because it is. In dictatorships, these are called show trials. Everyone understands that the outcome is predetermined. Everyone understands that justice is non-existent. The verdict is entirely political. It is a faux-legal rationalisation of what the security state wants.

Judge Johnson is the perfect judge to play that part…………………….https://scheerpost.com/2026/06/11/legal-profession-revolt-against-the-uk-judge-whose-job-is-to-protect-israels-genocide/

June 18, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, UK