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Why did police stop Nazareth-based journalist Jonathan Cook during a visit to the UK?

Cook, who writes about Middle East affairs and the Israel-Palestine conflict in particular, has described being stopped by a Thames Valley Police officer while visiting family near High Wycombe, in circumstances that raise fresh concerns about authoritarianism and UK policing practices.

In a Facebook post, he wrote:

Today I was driving near High Wycombe. A Thames Valley police car was behind me for a minute or so. As I came to a complicated set of mini-roundabouts, it turned on its blue lights and set off its siren, forcing me to pull over in a dangerous section of road between the roundabouts.

A policeman came over, bent down by the window and asked in the chummiest of tones: “Are you having a good day?” I said I was until he showed up.

He asked if my name was Jonathan Cook. He then asked what I was doing here. I responded that I was visiting family. Was that a problem?

He answered that it was routine to make checks on what he called “cross-border activity”. When I asked him what he meant by “cross-border activity”, he said the car was registered to an address in Bristol, and that was a two and a half hour drive away – it’s not, it’s 1 hour 45 minutes away. He added that it was a long way to come.

I must have looked slightly stunned. He told me not to worry, wished me well and – with a smile – said I could continue on my way. Have others had a similar experience? Is it now normal to be stopped in the UK simply because you’re driving more than 90 minutes from home?

The key questions

1. How did the officer know his name?
   • If it was Cook’s personal vehicle, police systems would identify him as the registered keeper when they ran the plate.
   • But if it was a hire car, as seems possible given his residence in Nazareth, then the immediate use of his name would suggest prior intelligence — or surveillance.
2. What is ‘cross-border activity’?
   • There are no legal restrictions on driving between UK cities. Travel within England has not been subject to police monitoring since Covid lockdowns.
   • Police sometimes use the term “cross-border” when referring to county lines drug trafficking or stolen vehicles, but neither applied here.
3. Why was this done in such a manner?
   • Stopping a motorist in a dangerous spot, asking intrusive questions, and then dismissing the encounter with a smile looks less like road safety enforcement and more like intimidation — or fishing for information.

Chilling implications

If UK police are now stopping people simply for driving more than 90 minutes from their registered address, that is a deeply alarming development.

The UK has no system of internal borders — yet the police officer implied that Cook had crossed one. Did he mean borders between police service territories? In that case, had he been under surveillance elsewhere?

And if the police knew who Jonathan Cook was before they even spoke to him, despite him living abroad and possibly driving a car not registered in his name, the incident raises serious concerns about whether journalists critical of Western and Israeli policy are being singled out.

What next?

Cook might have been well-advised to take the officer’s collar number and file a formal complaint with the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police. At the very least, this would test the official explanation.

But even without that, this story highlights the way policing can be used to unsettle, monitor, and potentially intimidate individuals — particularly those who challenge powerful interests.

If this is “routine”, then the public urgently needs to know about it.

In fact, it just happens that Yr Obdt Srvt will be taking a long car journey tomorrow.

I’ll let you know if anything happens.

Have you been stopped in similar circumstances?

If so, your story could shed more light on whether this was an isolated oddity, or part of a wider, more worrying pattern. Get in touch by emailing [email protected]

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