Should we support Palestine Action?
From "DeClassified" website.
"The UK government was secretly advised that Palestine Action is “highly unlikely” to advocate for violence while officials struggled to produce evidence the group posed a national security threat, it can be revealed.
Despite this, the activist group was banned earlier this month when Home Secretary Yvette Cooper proscribed it under terrorism legislation.
It is the first time in British history that a direct-action group has been branded a terrorist organisation.
Only 26 MPs voted against the ban, which provoked a wave of civil disobedience across Britain, with protesters holding placards saying:
“I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”.
Over 100 people have now been arrested under the Terrorism Act for allegedly showing support for the group, including an 83-year-old priest and a man holding a Private Eye cartoon.
Declassified has now seen documents which detail why, how, and when the decision to proscribe Palestine Action was made. They form part of the material relied upon in the group’s High Court challenge to the ban
The documents detail how the government’s Proscription Review Group (PRG) conceded in March 2025 that a ban on Palestine Action would be “novel and unprecedented”.
This was because “there was no known precedent of an organisation being proscribed… mainly due to its use or threat of action involving serious damage to property”.
The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), which is based within MI5, also concluded that
“the majority of direct action by Palestine Action would not
^be classified as terrorism^… ^but does often involve criminality*”.
Cooper was nonetheless advised in March by PRG and JTAC that the threshold to ban the group had been met
based on three out of a total of 385 incidents!!!
Involving “serious property damage” to arms factories*.
Lawyers representing the group’s co-founder Huda Ammori argued in court that these activities were not intended to “influence the government” and therefore could not satisfy the statutory test for terrorism.
While one incident involved several alleged assaults:
UK officials broadly recognised that Palestine Action (PA) does not promote or encourage attacks on people.
The JTAC assessment notes how: “PA media channels highly likely will only share footage, or encourage, instances of property damage. PA branded media will highly unlikely explicitly advocate for violence against persons”.
The documents also indicate how national security concerns were not a central factor in the Home Office’s decision to proscribe. Indeed, they barely feature in the government’s open evidence.
Ammori’s lawyers argued in court that “no national security justification for the proscription” was articulated by the Home Office:
Cooper “did not take into account any weighty national security consideration requiring immediate proscription”.
This appears to run contrary to Cooper’s statement to parliament on 23 June, in which she declared: “The UK’s defence enterprise is vital to the nation’s national security and this Government will not tolerate those who put that security at risk”
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