Protester arrested over ‘Plasticine Action’ T-shirt: ‘How ridiculous is this?’

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Protester arrested over ‘Plasticine Action’ T-shirt: ‘How ridiculous is this?’
Miles Pickering says crowd at protest over Palestine Action ban was laughing at ‘silliness’ of scene as he was detained

Robyn Vinter and Ben Quinn
Mon 18 Aug 2025 14.46 BST
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It was only after Miles Pickering arrived at Scotland Yard following his arrest that the police realised they had got things embarrassingly wrong.

The T-shirt worn by the Brighton engineer did not express support for a proscribed terrorist group, instead the words on it read “Plasticine Action” and inside the letter “o” was an image of the stop-motion character Morph giving two thumbs up.

Speaking to the Guardian, Pickering admitted it was designed to be an easy mistake to make, appearing to look like the logo of Palestine Action, the protest group banned under terrorism legislation last month, but text underneath the logo reads: “We oppose AI-generated animation.”

The arrest happened – one of 532 that day – at a protest in Parliament Square in London on 9 August, after a police officer glanced at his top.

“I’m like: ‘Well, there you go, Plasticine Action.’ He looked down and he said: ‘Right, you’re nicked.’ And I thought: ‘Oh, here we go,’” said Pickering.

Outside the Met police headquarters at what essentially was a pop-up booking suite made from two gazebos dealing with the large volume of arrested people, a large group of protesters cheered as people were brought in by officers.

“They were all cheering us, and I was cheekily pointing to my T-shirt and going ‘Plasticine Action!’ to everyone, so they were taking photos of me, and everyone was laughing at how silly it was that I was getting arrested for being a plasticine terrorist,” Pickering said.

He had been arrested under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which makes it an offence to wear anything supporting a proscribed organisation. A senior officer asked the arresting officer if he could arrest Pickering under section 12, which could have brought a more serious charge of supporting a proscribed group.

“[The arresting officer] said: ‘No, I can’t.’ And they said: ‘Why not?’ He said: ‘Because he hasn’t got Palestine Action written on him. He’s got Plasticine Action written on him.’”

About five minutes later, the arresting officer approached him again. “He said: ‘I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.’ I said: ‘What’s the good news?’ He said: ‘I’m de-arresting you.’

“And I said: ‘What’s the bad news?’ He said: ‘It’s going to be really embarrassing for me.’ And then I walked free, while all the real heroes are the people that are actually getting arrested.”

Pickering has made copies of the T-shirt, which he is selling through his own website to raise money for the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians. It has sold in 28 countries already.

“So there’s people getting on this one, because it kind of works, doesn’t it?” he said. “It’s like we are just going to mock you for your ridiculous decision to proscribe a protest group. It’s just so important that our rights to protest do not get diminished.”