Jens Lerche

Such great news. Pressure works. High court rules ban on Palestine Action is unlawful – live theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2…

The @AgrarianChange Seminar Series – Spring 2026 kicks off with a hybrid event featuring Mercedes Ejarque’s insightful research on agrarian transformations and land struggles in Argentine Patagonia. More info & registration 👉aqs.org.uk/event/producin…

My co-edited book with Kayhan Valadbaygi, Mode of Production and the Historiography of Capitalism, is now out with Bristol University Press. The book reopens the mode of production debate and its historiographical stakes. 50% off in the January sale. bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/mode-of-produc…

The Ambedkar–Kalaignar Visiting Fellowship. A fully-funded 3-month fellowship in London for those working on social justice, human rights, and democracy. Check eligibility and apply here: soas.ac.uk/study/student-…

We are delighted to introduce Amala Dasarathi, the first recipient of the Beena Sondhi LLM Scholarship at SOAS, set up by Senior Advocate Aditya Sondhi in memory of his mother. It supports Indian graduates committed to human rights and criminal justice. 👉soas.ac.uk/about/blogs/in…

The Scottish media is exceptional in that it is reporting this - unlike UK national media. Incredible.

The BBC’s Question Time “immigration special” didn’t go as many would have hoped. Here’s everyone who stood up for refugee and migrant rights - and a compassionate society.

Agree: this is a central area of rural class relations that is woefully under-studied. Now time also to think about analytical and theoretical implications of this?

An excellent set of studies of class, caste and aspects of gender relations in East and West Uttar Pradesh, under different rural capitalist development trajectories. Great to have had some involvement!

Review judge pulled from Palestine Action hearing at last hour, in patent stitch-up: The High Court judge who granted a legal challenge to the government’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action – the first time in British history a civil-disobedience organisation has been declared a terrorist group, one now treated as on a par with al-Qaeda – has been removed at the last minute. The judicial review hearing is due to start tomorrow without Justice Martin Chamberlain. He will be replaced with a panel of three judges. Justice Chamberlain did not suffer any timetabling conflicts. The Justice Ministry declined to offer any explanation for such a highly irregular change. The outcome of the case will affect thousands of ordinary British citizens who have opposed the government’s anti-democratic proscription decision. They currently face jail sentences, and terrorism convictions, for holding placards saying: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Some oppose proscription because they believe civil disobedience of the kind used by Palestine Action, which targets arms factories supplying Israel with weapons used to slaughter Palestinian children, is the only effective way to put pressure on the government to stop colluding in the Gaza genocide. Others hope to make the proscription unenforceable through mass defiance and thereby salvage one of the most fundamental democratic rights – the right to protest – from government assault. Notably, this is not the first time Justice Chamberlain, who is noted for his independence, has been removed unexpectedly from a judicial review hearing in an Israel-related case. Earlier this year, he was replaced by two other judges after he granted a legal challenge to the government’s continuing sale of parts for F-35 jets to Israel, despite the fighter plane’s use in the killing of many tens of thousands of civilians and the destruction of more than 80 per cent of all buildings in Gaza. A panel of three judges will now sit in place of Justice Chamberlain. Dame Victoria Sharp is a from a family with extensive and close ties to the Conservative party. She is the twin sister of Richard Sharp, who was appointed chair of the BBC Board by Boris Johnson, after Sharp had helped secured the Tory prime minister a £800,000 loan. Sharp was later forced to resign. Victoria Sharp is best known for jailing climate activists involved in peaceful protest and for forcing journalist Carole Cadwalladr to pay Brexit donor Aaron Banks £1 million in legal fees after he sued for libel. Dame Karen Steyn was one of two judges who replaced Justice Chamberlain in the F-35 hearing. She and Justice Males ruled in Israel’s favour, even while accepting that Israel could use F-35s in Gaza in violation of international law. Sir Jonathan Swift, meanwhile, has a long history of siding with the British state – for eight years he was the government’s top lawyer. In 2023 Swift rejected the appeal of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange against the British government’s approval of his extradition to the US for exposing US and UK war crimes. The US wanted to lock him up indefinitely in a super-max prison. Through class affiliation, upbringing, education and selection for temperament, senior judges invariably have a bias towards the interests of the British establishment. But some have a stronger bias than others. It is not hard to understand why Chamberlain has been removed. His earlier rulings on Palestine Action’s proscription indicated that it might be difficult for him to rule in favour of the government. It is also clear why he is being replaced by three new judges. Backing the government’s redefinition of terrorism – leading almost certainly to the jailing of former senior military personnel, barristers, doctors, priests, Holocaust survivors, and a former adviser to King Charles, all of whom who have publicly supported Palestine Action – risks looking like precisely what it is: a political decision in favour of lawlessness by the British state. Having a ruling from a panel of three judges is a desperate attempt to create a veneer of judicial authority in support of the actions of an outlaw government. It won’t work. This already looks like a self-evident stitch-up to extricate Sir Keir Starmer and his ministers from the mess they have made of British terrorism laws – all so they can continue conspiring in Israel’s genocide.

After more than five years of unjust incarceration as an undertrial in the Bhima Koregaon case, activist Jyoti Jagtap walked free from jail on interim bail.

📚 Join the @KingsIntDev for a book talk with Adam Hanieh, Robert Knox, and @RafeefZiadah about their new book "Resisting Erasure; Capital, Imperialism, and Race in Palestine" 📅 26 November 2025 Find out more and register: buff.ly/vjKLE4r

#agrarianchange2025 This week, we are sharing the recordings from the FAS International Conference on Agrarian Change 2025. We begin with Day 1 (November 6, 2025), which featured the Inaugural Session and the First Plenary Session. 🎥 Access the session recordings here: fas.org.in/conference2025… Read the report for Day 1 here: fas.org.in/conference2025… More session recordings will be shared over the week.

👉 “There exists a social texture to the hidden nature of class, i.e., the social relations of exploitation of Bihari migrants via the labour contracting system.” RMust read piece by @maskaramanish25 👇👇👇 outlookindia.com/national/anato… @SOASDevelopment

BREAKING: Five arrested under the Terrorism Act after they unfurled a banner on Westminster Bridge which read: 'We support the hunger strikers. We support Palestine Action'

UN Special Rapporteur @FranceskAlbs denounces the UK's crackdown on Palestine Action, saying it has helped create "a climate of complicity". "framing this as terrorism is beyond what terrorism is and constitutes," she said. middleeasteye.net/video/francesc…

Prof Jens Lerche introduces @reviewagrarian with a focus on two villages of UP saying it “significantly furthers our understanding of the agrarian and post-agrarian production and class relations and related caste-based inequalities @SOAS @AgrarianChange ras.org.in/?Article=intro…

Here we go. Get the word out now! #FreePalestine