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News - 10 September 2025

The UK just took a harder stance on Banksy than genocide

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Willem Moore

@willem_moore


On Monday 8 September, Banksy unveiled his latest piece at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. As an obvious critique of Britain using the law to intimidate protesters, the piece quickly proved controversial with UK authorities. Obviously uncomfortable with the message, the police launched an investigation, and the courts deployed what can only be described as an ‘anonymous riot gimp’ to scrub the artwork from the walls:

This chain of events contrasts uncomfortably with the news that the UK government has decided Israel “isn’t committing genocide”.

This means the UK can decide that Banksy’s latest piece is potentially criminal in hours but they can’t call a genocide a genocide nearly two years in.

It’s all so very predictable of this current Labour government.

Banksy: war on piece

Regardless of whether you think Banksy should be allowed to paint on public buildings, he has done for years now, and Britain celebrated him for it. As such, it’s suspicious the police are now finally springing into action. Reporting on the potential criminal proceedings, the Independent wrote:

Banksy could finally see his identity revealed after police launched an investigation into his latest artwork at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

The Metropolitan Police is examining whether the recent work, which shows a judge in a wig and gown beating a protester holding a blood-splattered placard, is enough to put him in front of the court where his name would be revealed to the public.

Potentially Banksy could away with this by simply not coming forwards? Presumably there are financial avenues the police could pursue to uncover his identity, but if not, we may end up with a situation in which thousands of UK citizens come forwards to claim ‘I am Banksy‘.

Several videos and images have come out of the image being removed, which originally looked like this:

At some point the riot gimp donned a high vis jacket, perhaps worried people couldn’t see him defacing the artwork at a distance:

Multiplying the symbolism by 1,000%, the shadow of the image they tried to scrub is arguably more powerful than the original:

Complicity

As Skwawkbox reported for the Canary on 9 September:

The UK government, after almost two years of providing political cover for Israel’s genocide and more than a year directly assisting it, has announced its carefully considered conclusion that… you’ve guessed it: Israel is not committing genocide.

People had a strong reaction to this online:

The government explained that it doesn’t consider it to be genocide because:

As per the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide occurs only where there is specific “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” The Government has not concluded that Israel is acting with that intent.

We’re not sure where Labour was looking, but it certainly wasn’t at the widely documented instances of senior Israeli politicians making their genocidal intent clear.

Amnesty International reported on this too, stating:

In its analysis, the organization also considered alternative arguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly or that it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process, demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent.

However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view of Palestinians as disposable and not worthy of consideration is in itself evidence of genocidal intent.

Many of the unlawful acts documented by Amnesty International were preceded by officials urging their implementation. The organization reviewed 102 statements that were issued by Israeli government and military officials and others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them.

Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statements made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensive that appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent. This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified by Amnesty International showing soldiers making calls to “erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities.

Contrast

Maybe if Banksy paints the statements of senior Israelis on the walls of listed buildings, UK politicians will finally have to acknowledge them?

Or maybe not.

The moment when Labour could have held Israel accountable is long gone, as our government is just as implicated as the Tories they replaced at this point. And much like with Banksy’s latest piece, these politicians will struggle to wipe away the stain of what they’ve done.

Featured image via Good Law Project – X/Twitter





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