Kate Devlin & Millie Cooke
The Independent / August 12, 2025
Baroness Chakrabarti said the proscription of the group risks exacerbating community tensions, and campaigners warned the ban was a threat to freedom of speech.
Sir Keir Starmer is facing a furious backlash against the arrest of hundreds of people during a protest over Palestine Action on Saturday and has been warned he is making a mistake of “poll tax proportions”.
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MPs from across the political divide warned of an excessive use of counterterrorism powers that was riding roughshod over the right to peaceful protest, after it emerged that many of those held were aged over 60.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed on Sunday that 532 arrests were made, 522 for displaying an item in support of a proscribed organisation at the march in central London over the weekend.
Civil liberties groups including Amnesty and Liberty said the arrests were “disproportionate to the point of absurdity” and that the government’s terrorism laws were a threat to freedom of expression.
Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti told The Independent the “proscription of Palestine Action is in danger of becoming a mistake of poll tax proportions” – a reference to Margaret Thatcher’s unpopular policy that triggered civil disobedience and riots.
She added: “The notable presence of so many older people highlights the strength of genuine feeling. Criminal damage at air force bases can be prosecuted, but sweeping guilt by association only exacerbates community tensions and creates a bigger headache for the police.”
The 532 protesters detained on Saturday is thought to be the highest number of arrests made by the Metropolitan Police in a single protest event since the poll tax riot of 31 March 1990.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper defended the police but suggested those who were arrested may not “know the full nature of this organisation”.
Her comment led to calls for the authorities to be more “clear cut” about why they proscribed Palestine Action last month.
The group hit the headlines earlier this year when four members were accused of causing around £7m worth of damage to aircraft at RAF Brize Norton.
After the arrests, Downing Street defended the move to ban the group, saying it was “violent”, had committed “significant injury” as well as criminal damage, and that the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre had found the organisation had carried out three separate acts of terrorism.
But former Conservative cabinet minister Sir David Davis told The Independent the arrests were an “excessive use of counterterrorism law”, adding “they’ve gone over the top”.
He said: “We’ve not really been given any evidence for the reasoning behind proscribing Palestine Action. I mean, they broke in and painted an aircraft, they did not set bombs or anything. So that’s the first question. What was the criteria? And then secondly, should you be arresting lots of people because they support a particular side and put up a banner?”
He added: “The authorities should be more clear cut about why they have proscribed Palestine Action.”
Meanwhile, veteran backbencher Diane Abbott said the government is in danger of making itself look “both draconian and foolish”.
And former Labour cabinet minister Peter Hain described the mass arrests as “madness” and said Palestine Action was not “equivalent to real terrorist groups like al-Qaeda or Islamic State [which is] why I voted against its ban”.
Ministers insisted, however, that supporters would “feel the full force of the law”.
Police had warned before Saturday’s protest in Parliament Square, organised by Defend Our Juries, that they would detain anyone expressing support for Palestine Action.
Victims minister Alex Davies-Jones said the right to peacefully protest was a “cornerstone of our democracy, and of course, we respect that”.
But she added that Palestine Action “violently carried out criminal damage to RAF aircraft [and] we have credible reports of them targeting Jewish-owned businesses here in the United Kingdom, and there are other reasons, which we can’t disclose because of national security”.
She said: “But they are a proscribed terrorist organisation and anyone showing support for that terrorist organisation will feel the full force of the law.”
Former top prosecutor Nazir Afzal raised the alarm over the impact on court backlogs, telling The Independent prosecuting those arrested would be a “terrific waste of time”.
“These would probably be jury trials as each of them would be advised to plead not guilty and expect a trial in 2027 at the earliest,” he said. “I also suspect that no jury would convict anyhow.”
Amnesty International chief executive Sacha Deshmukh said: “Peaceful protest is a fundamental right. People are understandably outraged by the ongoing genocide being committed in Gaza and are entitled under international human rights law to express their horror.”
He added: “We have long criticised UK terrorism law for being excessively broad and vaguely worded and a threat to freedom of expression. These arrests demonstrate that our concerns were justified.”
Sam Grant, director of external relations at Liberty, said: “The scenes we saw over the weekend of mass arrests at public protests are deeply concerning. That hundreds of people were arrested under these powers further highlights the dangerous breadth and vagueness of the UK’s anti-terrorism laws. Conflating protest activity with terrorism rightly has the general public scratching their heads.”
Membership of, or support for, Palestine Action is a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Securing a charge for an offence under the Terrorism Act will, in some instances, require approval by both the Crown Prosecution Service and attorney general Lord Hermer, police said.
Palestine Action co-founder, Huda Ammori, said the Parliament Square demonstration would “go down in our country’s history as a momentous act of collective defiance of an unprecedented attack on our fundamental freedoms”.
She also criticised the policing methods used, claiming the fact most of those arrested at the protest were “given street bail and allowed to go home” proved the current ban was “unenforceable”.
Responding to protests on Saturday, Yvette Cooper said: “The right to protest is one we protect fiercely but this is very different from displaying support for this one specific and narrow, proscribed organisation. Palestine Action was proscribed based on strong security advice following serious attacks the group has committed, involving violence, significant injuries and extensive criminal damage. It also follows an assessment from the Joint Terrorism Assessment Centre that the group prepares for terrorism, as well as concerning information referencing plans and ideas for further attacks, the details of which cannot yet be publicly reported due to ongoing legal proceedings.
“Many people may not yet know the reality of this organisation, but the assessments are very clear – this is not a non-violent organisation. UK national security and public safety must always be our top priority.
“Their actions are not about the horrific suffering in the Middle East and do not reflect or represent the thousands of people across the country who are exercising their rights to protest peacefully.”
Kate Devlin is Whitehall Editor at The Independent
Millie Cooke is Political Correspondent of The Independent
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Palestine Action demonstrators should not be prosecuted for placards
Jonathan Sumption
The Independent / August 12, 2025
The demonstrations in support of Palestine Action were an inspired piece of public relations by that organisation, but we should not be taken in.
The Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism as including action involving “serious damage to property” in support of a political objective. This definition is in line with international norms and seems entirely appropriate. By that test, Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation.
It is dedicated to committing criminal damage against public and private property in protest against Israel’s actions in Gaza and Britain’s alleged involvement in it. It had vandalised property over on a number of occasions even before the breaking at RAF Brize Norton. Criminal damage is not a legitimate form of protest.
Supporting the Palestinian cause and supporting Palestine Action are two quite separate things. Supporting the Palestinian cause is a natural reaction to the appalling scenes of destruction, deliberate starvation and indiscriminate killing by the Israeli army in Gaza. Demonstrating against that is a legitimate form of protest.
Support for Palestine Action is something different. It means not just supporting the Palestinian cause but supporting a method of protest which is violent and criminal. One can express one’s disgust at Israel’s conduct in Gaza without adopting Palestine Action’s methods.
The Terrorism Act creates an offence of supporting a proscribed organization. It precisely defines what acts amount to support. One of them is wearing, carrying or displaying an article giving rise to a reasonable suspicion that the person supports the proscribed organisation. This is far too wide.
Merely indicating your support for a terrorist organisation without doing anything to assist or further its acts should not be a criminal offence and is not consistent with basic rights to free speech. It looks as if Palestine Action has deliberately courted trouble by encouraging people to carry placards with messages specially designed to commit the offence. Martyrdom sometimes has a political value.
It was necessary for the home secretary to proscribe Palestine Action if she wished to disrupt its funding and discourage people from actively assisting its programme of violence. That is a reasonable political objective. Unfortunately, the home secretary cannot proscribe an organisation without also making it a criminal offence to carry placards supporting it.
For the demonstrators the solution is simple enough. Oppose Israeli violence but do not support Palestine Action’s violence. For the prosecuting authorities, there is also a simple solution. The director of prosecution’s consent is required for any prosecution of those who have been arrested. Where a demonstrator acted peacefully, he would be wise not to authorise a prosecution. People courting martyrdom should not be indulged.
In the longer term, the right course would be to amend the Terrorism Act so as to redefine in a more sensible way the offence of supporting a proscribed organisation.
Lord Jonathan Sumption is a former Supreme Court judge and author of the five-volume series, The Hundred Years War (Faber & Faber)
