I do not support Palestine Action. No one can after midnight on Saturday the 5th of July, when the order by the Home Secretary, approved by both Houses of Parliament, took effect, designating them a terrorist organisation.
The reason almost no-one supports Palestine Action is not because they’ve thoroughly debated the issue and arrived at that conclusion. It is because, as law-abiding individuals, they fear the consequences brought on those who do. Take Reverend Sue Parfitt, the 83 year-old retired priest arrested simply for holding a placard that read: ‘I do not support genocide, I support Palestine Action’. A heinous crime, indeed.
This will be the true legacy of this legislation: not the prevention of terror, but the persecution of pensioners with placards.
For those of you that have missed the week’s news cycle, Palestine Action is a self-described ‘direct action group’ seeking to disrupt the sales of arms to Israel. The decision to proscribe the group came shortly after members of the organization broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and sprayed red paint on military aircraft. There has been ample commentary about the merits or demerits of this action, but I’m not here to repeat those arguments. You have probably already made up your mind on that.
No matter where you stood on the activities of Palestine Action before midnight on July 5th, you should be alarmed – assuming you believe free speech matters, and that terrorism laws should target actual terrorists. You should be especially concerned about the government’s decision to dilute the meaning of terrorism by weaponising the term to suppress protest and dissent.
In 1999, when another Labour Home Secretary, Jack Straw, introduced the Terorrism Act 2000 there were many backbench Labour MPs who feared the very consequence of the broad wording of the Act that we see today. They were concerned that it encompassed conduct that should not be within the remit of counter-terrorism legislation. Hansard, the official report of all parliamentary debates, records questions by, amongst others, John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, who, on 14th December 1999, raised the possibility of direct action groups being caught in a “catch-all provision that could be used in the courts to undermine civil liberties”.
In response to the rigorous questioning by the veteran parliamentarians, the Home Secretary clarified that the Act would not be used to target protesters or direct action groups. He specifically made assurances in relation to the environmental group Greenpeace: “I know of no evidence whatever that Greenpeace is involved in any activity that would fall remotely under the scope of this measure.” That was only a few months after Greenpeace activists were charged with criminal damage and theft in relation to their environmental action activities. The Minister of State for the Home Office, Mr Charles Clarke, reiterated the same commitment: “I have made it clear throughout that we do not have any intention of seeking to apply the legislation to any domestic, industrial or environmental action.”
Fast forward to 2025, when Corbyn would be making the same argument in Parliament, this time faced with the very consequences they were assured would never take place. It was not cynicism, but foresight. This Labour government is using the Terrorism Act in precisely the same way that the last Labour government promised not to.
Out of the 81 now-proscribed organisations, Palestine Action is the only direct action group. Yet it is grouped with the murderous Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and the Maniacs Murder Cult. The break with practice and precedent was not intended as a proportionate response to the activities of the group, but to silence dissent over an ongoing genocide. Its consequences for civil liberties and fundamental rights go far beyond long jail sentences and the catastrophic social and professional consequences of being labelled a ‘terrorist’.
Under Section 40 of the Terrorism Act 2000, an individual who commits an offence under Section 12 of the Act is designated a ‘terrorist’. This gives the government sweeping powers – including arrest without warrant and stop-and-search without cause for suspicion. It has always been controversial whether fundamental rights guaranteed by the common law for centuries should be stripped from those who are overtly seen as engaged in acts of terrorism. Now, these powers apply to those holding a placard, wearing a pin, or sticking a poster on a laptop.
Chamberlain J, the High Court judge who ruled against the co-founder of Palestine Action as she sought an injunction to suspend the order of the Home Secretary, described the consequences of the proscription as stated by the claimants as “overstated”. That is perhaps because counsel for the co-founder focused too much on the consequences for participating in direct action. When the challenge to the proscription reaches a full hearing later this month, the court should recognise the wider implications of the Home Secretary’s decision on the chilling of speech when assessing whether the decision is to be upheld. Granting power to the government to detain without charge an individual who wears a pin with ‘Palestine Action’ on it, and then potentially put them in prison for a decade or more, is no less alarming than what so many are horrified to see be done across the Atlantic by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Nothing now stops the government from using these powers against students establishing encampments or organising sit-in protests.
This is bigger than Palestine Action. It is clear that this is not just about silencing a particular group. Direct action has been and continues to be used by others. If this decision is upheld by the courts later this month, it will be a greenlight for every future government – left, right, or extreme – to do the same. Today it’s Palestine Action. Tomorrow it’s Greenpeace. The next day it’s students demanding an end to their university’s complicity in genocide.
If you think this is a win for one side over the other in relation to Israel’s war on Gaza, be careful what you wish for.
Today, politicians rightfully celebrate the achievements of the suffragettes, with more than 200 female MPs celebrating the suffragettes in a photo-call within days of voting to proscribe Palestine Action. The suffragettes smashed windows, chained themselves to railings, and even engaged in a bombing campaign in which at least four died, so that the government and wider society could not ignore their calls for the right of women to vote. Palestine Action was responsible for no fatal attacks.
Many are the times when concerned and compassionate members of the public, like the Reverend Sue Parfitt, are years ahead of the curve, suffering massive personal consequences only to be vindicated later. I have no doubt that this is one such time.
