Home Office probes Palestine Action over suspected Iran link
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced on Monday afternoon that the UK government had decided to proscribe activist group Palestine Action – and now it transpires that officials are investigating its funding over concerns that there may be an Iran link. As reported by the Times, Palestine Action's donations are being probed amid worries that the Iranian regime is funding the campaign group via proxies given their aims align. How curious…
Palestine Action's donations are being probed amid fears that the Iranian regime is funding the campaign group via proxies
Palestine Action – which states its purpose is to 'dismantle the apartheid regime in Israel through targeted campaigns against companies that profit from the occupation and genocide of the Palestinian people' – admits on its website that as it is a grassroots movement, its funding may be 'sometimes inconsistent'. Donations can be made via its site, but the group does not publish financial information – although one of its few public donors is known to be James 'Fergie' Chambers, a US communist who is also the heir to the billion-dollar Cox Enterprises empire. NGO monitor, a research organisation that holds activist groups to account, has blasted Palestine Action for not revealing its funding sources, saying this 'reflects a lack of transparency and accountability'. And now the Home Office has waded in, with concerns about exactly where the group is getting the significant sums required for its legal costs. Dear oh dear…
Cooper told the Commons on Monday that her decision to proscribe the group was made in parr by considering Palestine Action long history of controversial and damaging stunt. In 2022, seven members of the group broke into the Bristol headquarters of Elbit Systems UK, a subsidiary of the Israel-based arms manufacturer, with sledgehammers. In the same year, the group attacked the Thales defence factory in Glasgow and Instro Precision in Kent. In March last year, a Palestine Action activist slashed a 1914 portrait of Lord Balfour at Trinity College, Cambridge. The following month, four activists were charged with causing some half a million pounds worth of damage at the Teledyne factory in Shipley, which supplies electronics to the defence sector. Earlier this year, Palestine Action sprayed Allianz Insurance's London offices with red paint and graffitied Donald Trump's Turnberry golf course in Scotland. They don't do things by halves, eh?
The Home Secretary will lay a draft proscription order next Monday, and MPs will vote on the motion the following Wednesday. If passed, it is down to the House of Lords to have the final say before the legislation comes into force on 4 July. Stay tuned…
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