Pressure continues to mount against the Home Secretary’s Palestine Action proscription plan as MPs, legal campaigners and public supporters rally behind the direct action group.
The controversial proscription proposal by the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has been met with sharp opposition including from large segments of the general public.
A fundraiser set up to raise funds to help fight legal costs passed over £100,000 in the first 24 hours while a petition demanding “no proscription of Palestine Action has already past 22,000 signatures and continuing to grow.
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, called the government’s move “as absurd as it is authoritarian” and denounced it as “a draconian assault on the democratic right to protest.”
Diane Abbott, the MP for Hackney North, tweeted: “To clarify, what Israel is doing is terrorism. What Palestine Action is doing is protesting it.”
She added that prosecuting the group under anti-terror laws is akin to how suffragettes were once criminalised.
Zarah Sultana, an independent MP, posted: “We are all Palestine Action.”
Subscribe to our newsletter and stay updated on the latest news and updates from around the Muslim world!
Other MPs who have condemned the move include Kim Johnson, Richard Burgon, Apsana Begum, Nadia Whittome, John McDonnell, and Green MPs Sian Berry and the Muslim Vote backed MPs, Shokat Adams and Iqbal Mohammed.
Berry said the proscription “sets a dangerous and worrying precedent,” while Chowns described it as “a shocking overreaction to a couple of protestors using paint.”
Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts also opposed the move, and former Justice Secretary Lord Charlie Falconer questioned the legal basis for proscription, saying vandalising aircraft is a criminal matter, not terrorism.
Civil liberty concerns
Palestine Action formed in 2020 and engages in direct action to disrupt the operations of companies and institutions they believe are complicit in Israeli actions against Palestinians, particularly targeting arms manufacturers like Elbit Systems.
They’ve conducted over 500 operations since their founding, often accusing the UK of complicity in genocide in Gaza.
The British authorities have condemned the group before and many of their activists have been on trail but the shock decision to proscribe the non-violent group as a terror org came after pro-Palestinian activists associated to Pal Action targeted RAF Brize Norton and damaged two military aircraft.
Cooper said “the disgraceful attack on Brize Norton” on June 20 was “the latest in a long history of unacceptable criminal damage committed by Palestine Action.”
Human rights organisations, including Amnesty International UK and Liberty, expressed alarm over the proposed terror listing.
Amnesty International UK’s Chief Executive Sacha Deshmukh publicly stated that proscribing Palestine Action would amount to an “excessive and disproportionate interference with human rights,” and warned it sets a chilling precedent—risking criminalisation of peaceful assembly, association, and expression.
If the proscription passes, such public support would become a criminal offence.
Legal experts have pointed out that Palestine Action targets only property, not people, and has not been linked to acts of terrorism as defined under UK law to date.
The group’s tactics include “occupying” arms company sites, disrupting transportation routes, and spray-painting government and corporate buildings.
Saeed Taji Farouky, a member of the group, told the BBC: “This rips apart the very basic concepts of British democracy and the rule of law. It’s something everyone should be terrified about.”
Legal battle and public outpouring of support
In response to what it calls “a draconian attack” on its movement, Palestine Action has instructed renowned human rights solicitor Gareth Peirce of Birnberg Peirce, with assistance from Kellys Solicitors, to lead its legal defence against the government’s plan.
The group said it had received “an outpouring of support” following the announcement by the Home Secretary and has now launched a legal crowdfunding appeal seeking to raise £100,000 to fund the fightback.
“While we hope to stop the proscription process before it becomes law, we must also prepare for the possibility of launching a legal appeal to reverse it,” the group stated.
Since the time of writing this article, the petition has garnered £136,000 in donations within the first days.
In an overwhelming show of resentment to the impending ban, hundreds of protestors took to Trafalgar square.
Though peacefully conducted, police enforced an exclusion zone around Westminster and arrested seven people during the protest itself.
A London Metropolitan Police spokesman defended the intervention, noting some protesters had “resisted” orders and blocked transport routes.
The proposed ban comes amid a broader climate of repression targeting pro-Palestinian activism in the UK.
Police have increasingly cracked down on protests, and the Home Office has faced criticism for conflating support for Palestinian rights with extremism.
Palestine Action has faced hundreds of arrests since its founding, with activists often acquitted or having cases dropped in court.
The order to proscribe Palestine Action is expected to be laid in Parliament this week.
If no objections are raised, it could become law by the end of June, 2025. Critics warn that the implications reach far beyond this one group and further damage free speech in Britain.
