UK
MPs raise concerns about Labour’s plan to proscribe Palestine Action as terror group
MPs have voiced concern as Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said the government plans to proscribe Palestine Action under terrorism laws after they targeted an RAF base last week.
A draft proscription order will be presented to Parliament next Monday, and if passed, will make it illegal to be part of or “invite support for” the pro-Palestinian protest network under Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
In a written statement to Parliament today, Cooper said that since it was formed in 2020, “Palestine Action has orchestrated a nationwide campaign of direct criminal action against businesses and institutions”.
On Friday morning, activists from Palestine Action, which uses direct action tactics to disrupt the UK arms industry, broke into RAF Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire and spray painted two military planes.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the actions, calling them “disgraceful” and “an act of vandalism”.
Today, Palestine Action are protesting outside Parliament about the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Left MPs have warned that proscribing the group represents a misuse of anti-terrorism powers, and threatens the right to peaceful protest.
Labour MP Nadia Whittome said in a post on X: “Targeting non-violent protesters in this way is a misuse of terrorism-related powers.
“It sets a dangerous precedent, which governments in future could further use against their critics,” adding that “we should all be concerned” about the Home Secretary’s plan.
Ellie Chowns, a Green MP, wrote on X that she was “deeply concerned” about the announcement. She said: “This is a shocking overreaction to a couple of protestors using paint.
“Such a move would be completely non-proportional and a hugely worrying restriction on the right to peaceful protest which is a cornerstone of democracy.”
Irish novelist Sally Rooney has written about the government’s plan to proscribe Palestine Action in the Guardian today.
While the Home Secretary has broad powers to proscribe any organisation “concerned in terrorism”, Rooney points out that this process has previously only been used against militant groups involved in or advocating for violent armed struggle.
Rooney warned: “If the government proceeds down this path, any ordinary person in the UK could in theory be sent to prison simply for expressing verbal support for non-violent activism.”
She added that: “Palestine Action is not an armed group. It has never been responsible for any fatalities and does not pose any risk to the public.”
The bestselling author said she supports Palestine Action wholeheartedly and added that she “will continue to, whether that becomes a terrorist offence or not”.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
Palestine Action – what will you do?
JUNE 26, 2025
By David Renton
On Monday, the House of Commons will vote for the proscription of Palestine Action. The House of Lords will follow later in the week. By July 4th, the group will be named on the list of proscribed organisations, alongside Al Qa’ida, Hamas and Hizballah.
Once a group has been added to the list, the police can do what they like: suspected members may be searched and fingerprinted without their consent, their property seized, they cannot open a bank account. The British state has gathered in its hands so many emergency laws it can used against suspected terrorists. I represented a client who had been put on trial and found not guilty of supporting a terrorist group. As punishment for his innocence, the government subjected him to “terrorism prevention and investigation measures”, under which he had to leave his home, travel 200 miles, abandon his family. He was subject to five years’ house arrest – no mobile, no computers. The only softening of the regime was that he was permitted to leave the building for 30 minutes a day for exercise. Even that concession depended on him not being caught covertly phoning his lonely child.
This is the first time that the British government has sought to add a group to the list which does not use violence against people. A typical action of theirs involves going into an arms factory, breaking one or another machine, then climbing to the roof where they hope people will see them. It is an organization without guile or guilt, without blood on its hands. Its activities do not scare anyone, it makes no-one afraid. Its members are not, no matter how far you stretch the meaning of the word, terrorists.
Once the proscription takes effect, those who remain members of the group will face jail : two to three years for the majority of those prosecuted, up to 14 years for the leaders. By adding Palestine Action to the list, Keir Starmer is saying that Labour would have imprisoned Nelson Mandela. It would, like the bigots of imperial Britain, place iron chains around Mahatma Gandhi’s wrists.
While, as for Martin Luther King, this is what he said about those who damaged property in protest against racism: “Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on; it is not man.” Under cop-king Keir Starmer, that will be a breach of section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000: “A person commits an offence if the person expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization.” In two weeks, quoting King’s words in support of Palestine Action will earn you two years in prison, with 14 years again as the maximum.
I doubt the Labour MPs who vote for this legislation will understand the line they are crossing; how the police will use this precedent, or how they are making everyone in Britain who stands for the survival of people and the planet into their enemy. I doubt their reasoning will go further than that banning Palestine Action is a chance to kick all those protesters who stand outside their MP’s offices with placards saying that those inside, by continuing to sell arms to Israel, are guilty of genocide. Jail us all, remove our banners, and maybe Emily Thornberry will sleep easier at night.
And if the next Reform government, whose path Labour is so desperate to ease, should extend this proscription to Stop the War, to the unions, to every cause which has funded Labour through good times and bad – don’t expect any contrition from those MPs.
So what are you going to do about proscription: will you support the fund for its legal campaign? Or will you do what the usual suspects are demanding of the British left, that we condemn the group and its activities – even as we make some muted pleas for its de-proscription? Will you talk about Palestine Action in such vague and general terms that you protect yourself from prosecution, while doing nothing of any use to guard those facing jail?
What the group need is people speaking out with such a loud, shared, voice that the state does not dare use the powers it has taken. Will you say it with me? *I am Palestine Action, I am a member of the group. I am its supporter. I want other people to support Palestine Action alongside me.*
No matter how many prisons Labour builds, there will never be space for us all.
David Renton is a barrister and the author of Against the Law: Why Justice Requires Fewer Laws and a Smaller State, which was published by Repeater in 2022 and of Horatio Bottomley and the Far Right Before Fascism, which was published by Routledge in November 2022. This article was taken from his blog Lives; Running and was originally published here.
Image: c/o Labour Hub.
“We must not let these fearmongering laws deter us”
JUNE 27, 2025
A statement from South Asia Solidarity Group in solidarity with Palestine Action.
South Asia Solidarity Group stands firmly in solidarity with direct action group Palestine Action, which the UK government has announced its intention to proscribe as a ‘terrorist’ organisation. We condemn this outrageous attack on anti-colonial and anti-imperialist organising, protest and dissent.
This is not the first time in recent months that the British state has clamped down on Palestine solidarity organising. The government has previously reportedly shared contact details of counter-terrorism police and prosecutors with the Israeli embassy during an investigation into a previous action by Palestine Action, as well as using terror laws to enable surveillance and detainment of Palestine activists such as the Filton 18. This group of activists are currently incarcerated while awaiting trial for their action targeting weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, in which they destroyed weapons including drones being used to commit genocide in Gaza.
The restrictions on organising extend well beyond direct action. Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Police announced that it is not acceptable to protest over Palestine anywhere in the general vicinity of a synagogue at any time on a Saturday, claiming that it presents a threat to the Jewish community. In April, the government introduced amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill restricting rights to protest which was challenged by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. The proscription of Palestine Action will be used to justify further repressive policing of protests. The acute violence of the Met Police at the protest against the proscription on 23rd June 2025 shows that this impact is already starting to take effect. The message that protests and action in solidarity with the Palestinian people are ‘terrorism’ will also embolden Zionists, the far-right and racists to intensify their physical attacks on pro-Palestine protests and actions.
The UK is far from unique in such legislation. Cases like that of protestor Mahmoud Khalil in the US – a Palestinian student at Columbia University who was detained in March and is still facing the threat of deportation – are part of the same attempts at collective silencing by imperialist states in the Global North of any pro-Palestine resistance.
The proscribing of organisations supporting Palestine and providing solidarity includes the listing of Samidoun Prisoner Solidarity Network as a terrorist entity by the governments of Germany, the Netherlands and Canada. Addameer Prisoner Support – which has advocated for Palestinians imprisoned without evidence in Israeli prisons for over 30 years – was also recently placed on the US’ Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SGDT) list.
The persecution of those who speak or take action against the Gaza genocide is also being pursued by Zionist allies like the Modi government in India, where expressions of solidarity with Palestine of all kinds have been violently suppressed.
Of course, the British state not only hosts but is intimately tied to the weapons manufacturers whose weapons it exports to be used in Israel’s genocide. Declassified recently reported that Elbit Systems lobbied the Home Office for a retrial after criminal charges against Palestine Action’s co-founders were dismissed in December 2023.
It is clear by now that the UK establishment – along with those of other European countries and the US – are deeply threatened by the power of all pro-Palestine organising, from supporting Palestinian prisoners to directly disrupting the supply chains fuelling Israel’s genocide. Direct action works. Solidarity and advocacy further resistance. In the current climate, being proscribed means you are having an impact.
As activists focused on solidarity with people’s movements in South Asia, we recognise all too well the clampdown on the right to protest as a key aspect of a descent into fascism. We have long been exposing and highlighting the British state’s complicity in Israeli apartheid and genocide and the proscription of Palestine Action is another reminder of this. We must not let these fearmongering laws deter us but must come out stronger than ever in solidarity with Palestinians and all those fighting for a free Palestine.
- SIGN THE PETITION: Defend the right to protest: no proscription of Palestine Action here.
Image: c/l Labour Hub.
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