Photo: Hilary and Ian on the Big Ride
by
Ian Venables and Hilary Chuter
On Saturday 9 August 2025 we joined one of three Big Rides for Palestine taking place in London. The Big Ride was initiated in 2015 by activists who wanted to combine their love of cycling with support for the Palestinian people. Their first ride raised over £65,000 for the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), a charity whose projects help children recover from the loss and trauma they suffer by living under a vicious military occupation, and now a genocide. Since then rides have taken place every year across the UK with people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, ages and genders cycling to show their solidarity. For the last two years, as well as supporting MECA, the Big Ride has supported the Gaza Sunbirds, a paracycling team in Gaza working on the ground to deliver aid.
Our ride set off at 10am from Kings Cross, after a moving speech by Karim, a Gaza Sunbird, with over 200 cyclists flying Palestinian flags from their bikes, and chanting ‘Free Palestine’, ‘Stop the Genocide’ to the bemusement of people having an early pint in a pub on the Euston Road. As we rode further into east London the bemusement changed to outright support from passing traffic. Encouragement to ‘Blow your horn! Blow your horn!’ from one of our riders with a megaphone strapped to his head led to a cacophony of sound that accompanied us on all the major high roads.
We also kept up a constant noise of our own, with chanting and singing. On the residential streets whole families came out onto their doorsteps, cheering and waving, and saying ‘Thank you!’ as we came past. Palestinian flags were waved from windows, and fists were raised in solidarity. It was an amazing and humbling experience. After seven and a half hours on the road we finally ended up at Wanstead Flats where the three rides converged.
The Big Ride was one of three major events for Palestine taking place in London on Saturday 9 August. The national demo took place in central London with 300,000 people taking to the streets. In Parliament Square up to 1000 sat with placards in defiance of the proscription of Palestine Action, organised by the campaign group Defend Our Juries, and on the rides over 750 cyclists brought a message of solidarity to huge numbers of people, and raised £1000s which will go directly to those giving aid on the ground in Gaza. All of these actions are important. All are valid. We will grow stronger as a movement if we understand that.
Our fundraiser for the Big Ride—MECA is still open. Thanks to people’s amazing generosity we have already raised nearly £900. We’d like to get it up to £1000. Please give what you can.
https://www.justgiving.com/page/hilary-chuter-middle-east-childrens-alliance
The UK government’s unequivocal support for the barbarism of the Israeli occupation forces is waning. It’s waning in the face of public condemnation of a livestreamed genocide. Its declaration to ‘recognise the state of Palestine’ in September is of course too little and too late for the and will give no material comfort for the two million people being starved in Gaza. But total support for the genocide is no longer possible from the UK government. Even the outright support of the British Board of Deputies can no longer be fully relied upon—divisions and subsequent suspensions have weakened their 20 months of claiming that Israel is justified in its slaughter of the Palestinians in Gaza. This is the result of every national and local demonstration, every petition, every letter written to MPs, every saucepan banged outside a house, library, MP’s office, every protest of arms factories. All further weaken the UK government’s stance of supporting genocide.
It was never going to be a few weeks of campaigning that compelled the UK government to back down, we knew that. The UK government is now on the back foot and it knows it. The criminalisation of people at the forefront of UK Palestinian resistance isn’t a sign of strength, it’s a sign of reading the room very very badly. As the plight of the Palestinian people becomes more dire by the hour, now is not the time to despair, it’s the time to push harder. Populate the demos, give support to those arrested for their refusal to be cowed, bang those saucepans, don’t let MPs think they’ve got a summer break from being asked difficult questions. Our fight to defend our right to protest goes hand in hand with building the biggest possible movement for Palestine.
Public opinion has never been so strongly in favour of Palestine solidarity. We cannot allow the state to put the genie back in the bottle. Join your local actions and see you in London on 6 September. Free Palestine!
Ian Venables is a semi-retired gardener who worked as a counsellor in the NHS for 27 years. A former councillor and Unite workplace rep.
Hilary Chuter is a member of the NEU, and Secretary of North East Kent TUC. Hilary has taken part in Big Rides for Palestine since 2017.
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