The proscription of Palestine Action has frightening implications

The National

3 hours ago

The legal proscription of groups such as Palestine Action is founded upon Islamophobic counter-terror legislation, which has disproportionately targeted Muslims and securitised issues related to the Middle East. It risks criminalising not only membership of an effective activist group but also a host of pro-Palestinian statements and actions.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is expected to announce the ban today after Palestine Action members broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire last week and sprayed two military planes with red paint. Proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation sets a dangerous precedent against anti-war activism but also represents the suppression by successive UK governments of activism drawing attention to British support for Israeli war crimes in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran.
READ MORE: 'He should be in the Hague': Laura Kuenssberg slammed for Israeli president interview
One reason why Palestine Action is facing such a harsh reprisal is the clear embarrassment the Brize Norton event has caused the British Government.
By breaking into an RAF air base, Palestine Action has sharply highlighted the limits of British power and security, at a time where Keir Starmer's Government seems keen to impress a reactionary US administration and show support for Israeli aggression in Iran. Meanwhile, the tactics of Palestine Action,have proven to be highly effective. Targeting institutions complicit in the genocide of Palestinians – such as Israeli-based military contractor Elbit Systems UK – it has used highly visual forms of direct activism to great effect, with occupations, the scaling of public structures and the spray painting and daubing of buildings.
Such activism has both disrupted the British military and British-based businesses profiting from war and genocide, and tapped into a widespread sense of disapproval and disgust across the public at UK Government for Israel, a country which has carried out mass killings.
The use of counter-terrorism powers against Palestine Action may seem surprising, but it represents a long process by which successive UK governments have sought to clamp down on activism highlighting British hypocrisy on the international stage.
For many years, counter-terror police have been conducting intelligence gathering on climate activists, to see if their activity could 'indicate a path towards terrorism'.
Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil have regularly faced harassment and threats of counter-terror action.
The proscribing of Palestine Action not only forms part of an assault on activism, but also showcases how counter-terrorism has become increasingly anti-Palestinian in its orientation, with British authorities deliberately and systematically conflating support for Palestine with terrorism.
Academics and human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, have long detailed experiences of harassment by counter-terror police, based on actual or perceived support of Palestinian rights.
The UK Government Prevent programme has played a significant part in securitising Palestinian activism, with schools students as young as five being reported to authorities after expressing sentiments in support of Palestine.
Since the start of massive Israeli violence in Gaza in October 2023, such reports have skyrocketed by 455%, with students told to remove badges, stickers and T-shirts that have 'free Palestine' on them, alleged retaliatory measures against college students for tweeting support or joining pickets for Palestine; and reports of university exclusions, suspensions and investigations, as well as the cancellations of pro-Palestinian events.
This normalisation of targeting of pro-Palestinian activism has had severe legal impacts, leading to prosecutions based on anti-activist sentiment.
These include the prosecution of three women who displayed images of paragliders during a protest and a man for wearing a green Saudi Arabian headband containing the basic statement of the Islamic faith 'shahada', on the charge of 'carrying or displaying an article in a public place in such a way as to arouse reasonable suspicion' that they were supporting Hamas.
In addition to the long trend by successive UK governments of criminalising Palestinian activism, proscription now frames it as a terror threat – equating Palestinian activism with, for instance, the 2005 London bombings, the murder of 51 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, or the execution of 77 left-wing youth at Utøya, Norway.
The use of such powers has frightening implications for Palestinian activism, not just because it will be framed as a security threat to the British state, but also because of how such legislation is constructed.
The Act of Proscription, as detailed under Part II of the Terrorism Act 2000, not only makes it illegal to be a member of a banned group, but also criminalises a host of other actions that are, or can be perceived as, being linked to the aims or objectives of the group.
It is not just a terror offence to belong, or profess to belong to, a proscribed organisation, in the UK or overseas – it is a terror offence to engage in acts that may be considered as supportive.
Under Part II, Section 12 of the Act, supportive acts are defined as 'moral support or approval' of a proscribed organisation, expressing an opinion or belief supportive of a proscribed organisation, or encouraging support for the activities of such an organisation.
The implementation of this law, when used against a non-violent Palestinian activist group, is the criminalisation of anyone who publicly expresses sentiment in support of Palestine Action's aims.
Its website lists these as 'ending global participation in Israel's genocidal and apartheid regime' and seeking to 'make it impossible for … companies to profit from the oppression of Palestinians'
Proscription also criminalises the wearing of clothing or carrying of signs that may 'arouse reasonable suspicion' that an individual supports a proscribed organisation, under Section 13 of the Act.
This includes publishing images of such items online. Pro-Palestinian clothes, the Palestinian keffiyeh, Palestinian flags and signs are now very squarely in the crosshairs of counter-terror police, creating a vast array of possibility for prosecution of activists.
The proscription of Palestine Action places people in Scotland and across Britain in very dangerous legal territory. Heavy-handed measures are increasingly being deployed by the British state to prosecute non-violent groups and activists as 'terrorists'.
Successive UK governments have sought to roll back human and democratic rights under the guise of counter-terrorism, prevent activism critical of the British state, and to conflate Muslim communities and Middle Eastern issues with terrorism.
The banning of Palestine Action represents an attempt to crush dissent that highlights British complicity in war crimes and embarrasses the UK Government.
It also introduces a host of deeply worrying possibilities for the prosecution of activists, journalists, academics – indeed, anyone who speaks out in support of Palestinian rights, an end to the genocide and the use of public activism.
Proscription shows the contempt the UK Government has for Palestinian freedom, and should be a loud alarm for those who value democracy and human rights, in times of genocide.
Richard McNeil-Willson lectures in the Islamic and Middle Eastern studies department at the University of Edinburgh