Two founders of Led By Donkeys to face trial after Labour HQ protest

Two founders of art and activism collective Led By Donkeys are to face trial in court after pleading not guilty to disobeying a police order.

The trial date is set for January 2026, and comes after the crew hung a giant banner opposite the Labour Party’s headquarters on Rushworth Street, in the London borough of Southwark last month, which featured a photograph of a bombed out street in Gaza.

At the time, the group posted the protest on Instagram, with the caption: ​“This morning we turned the street outside Labour Party Headquarters in London into [the] Jabaliya camp in Gaza.

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“A genocide is happening, but the Labour government is supplying weapons, intelligence and diplomatic cover to the perpetrator,” it continued. ​“Protesting this isn’t terrorism.”

It followed the recent proscription of activist network Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation by the Labour-led UK government on July 5. Earlier this month, a protest in support of the group saw over 500 people arrested, with half of those arrested being aged 60 or over, according to The Guardian.

Sally Rooney, the Irish novelist and author of Normal People, recently criticised the move in an essay in The Irish Times, and promised to give any money she made from the BBC from broadcasting adaptations of her books to ​“go on supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide in any way I can”.

She wrote: ​“If this makes me a ​‘supporter of terror’ under UK law, so be it.”

Isaac Muk is Huck’s dig­i­tal edi­tor. Fol­low him on Bluesky.

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