UK ban on Palestine Action ruled unlawful

The UK government’s contentious ban on Palestine Action under anti-terror laws has been ruled unlawful, threatening to throw hundreds of criminal prosecutions of the group’s supporters into disarray.

The High Court in London ruled on Friday that it was “disproportionate” for ministers to have proscribed the direct action network as a terrorist organisation alongside groups including al-Qaeda and Hizbollah.

The landmark decision is a major legal defeat for Sir Keir Starmer’s government, which pledged to fight the decision in the Court of Appeal.

Despite the ruling, the court said that the group remained proscribed pending a possible appeal — prompting police to warn of “confusion” among the public over whether supporting it remained a criminal offence.

Ministers had justified the use of anti-terror powers to ban the group to counter a threat to national security, warning it had engaged in an “escalatory campaign” of criminal damage and violence. The Home Office’s decision came after alleged damage at RAF Brize Norton, the UK’s largest air base.

But Palestine Action supporters said the ban has had a “chilling impact” on protest rights and freedom of expression over the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack on Israel.

The proscription has made it a serious crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison to belong to or invite support for the organisation.

More than 2,780 people have since been arrested for expressing support for the group, according to campaign group Defend Our Juries.

Hundreds have been charged, mostly under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, a lesser offence that carries a maximum of six months in prison, for activities such as holding up signs or wearing T-shirts.

The Metropolitan Police said on Friday there would “likely be some confusion among the public as to what happens next”.

Scotland Yard said officers would continue to “identify” offences “where support for Palestine Action is being expressed”, but they would “focus on gathering evidence of those offences and the people involved to provide opportunities for enforcement at a later date, rather than making arrests at the time”. The force said this was “the most proportionate approach we can take”.

On the continuing cases against people already arrested and charged for expressing support for Palestine Action, the Crown Prosecution Service said: “Should the government decide to appeal any adverse ruling, which has happened, it is a matter for the court whether cases continue or are adjourned in the interim.”

Asked what would happen if further people were arrested before the outcome of the expected government appeal, the CPS said: “The court made clear that the ban remains in place, and as such we’d have to apply the law if the police passed us a file.”

The challenge was launched by Palestine Action’s co-founder Huda Ammori and she received support in the case from groups including Amnesty International and Liberty.

Cultural figures including author Sally Rooney had also submitted evidence to the court, which heard the case in November, warning that the ban created legal uncertainty for artists and risked criminalising legitimate political expression.

The government’s lawyers argued that the right to general pro-Palestine protest was unaffected by the proscription. They told the court that Palestine Action’s activities passed the statutory threshold for terrorism, in part because serious damage to property met the definition.

However, in the judgment on Friday, a panel of three judges led by Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the King’s Bench Division, ruled that Ammori’s challenge was successful on two legal grounds.

The first was that the decision to proscribe was a “disproportionate” interference with freedom of expression and protest rights. The second was that the decision, taken by previous home secretary Yvette Cooper and approved by parliament, was not consistent with the government’s own policy on proscription.

The judges said Palestine Action “promotes its political cause through criminality and encouragement of criminality”. They also found that a “very small number of its actions have amounted to terrorist action”.

Even so, the court said the “nature and scale of Palestine Action’s activities” have not “reached the level, scale and persistence” to justify the consequences of proscription.

“We are satisfied that the decision to proscribe Palestine Action was disproportionate,” the judges said.

In response, home secretary Shabana Mahmood said she planned “to fight this judgment in the Court of Appeal”.

“I have the deepest respect for our judiciary,” she said. “Home secretaries must, however, retain the ability to take action to protect our national security and keep the public safe.”

Palestine Action’s Ammori said: “This is a monumental victory both for our fundamental freedoms here in Britain and in the struggle for freedom for the Palestinian people, striking down a decision that will forever be remembered as one of the most extreme attacks on free speech in recent British history.”

She said it would be “profoundly unjust for the government to try to delay or stop the High Court’s proposed order quashing this ban while the futures of these thousands of people hang in the balance”.

Additional reporting by Robert Wright