The United Kingdom said on June 23 that it would ban a pro-Palestinian campaign group called Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws. This would put the organisation on par with armed groups like al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) in the UK, making it a criminal offence to be part of Palestine Action.
The government’s announcement has prompted criticism from human rights organisations and triggered protests. On Tuesday, 13 people were arrested and seven were charged after protesters in London clashed with Metropolitan Police officers. The charges included assaulting emergency workers and a racially aggravated offence.
What is Palestine Action?
Palestine Action describes itself as a movement “committed to ending global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime”. The group was launched in July 2020.
The group says it seeks to use “disruptive tactics” to target “corporate enablers” and companies involved in weapons manufacture for Israel, such as Israel-based Elbit Systems, Italian aerospace company Leonardo, French multinational Thales and United States company Teledyne. The group has targeted British facilities linked to these companies.
“Palestine Action is a direct action group who have majoritively focused on weapons factories that are operating on British soil and are complicit in the current genocide in Gaza, but also in the longer-term kind of oppression of the Palestinian people,” Manaal Siddiqui, a spokesperson for Palestine Action, told Al Jazeera.
In 2022, the group broke into a Thales equipment factory in Glasgow, causing damage to weapons worth more than 1 million pounds ($1.4m).
In 2021, members of Palestine Action protested on the rooftop of Elbit Systems’ subsidiary UAV Tactical Systems in Leicester for six days, until a number of them were arrested by the police.
Why is the UK banning Palestine Action?
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement on Monday that she had decided to proscribe the group under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Cooper’s statement came days after June 20, when some Palestine Action activists broke into RAF Brize Norton, the largest station of the Royal Air Force in Oxfordshire, and sprayed two military planes with red paint.
In the most high-profile move made by the group so far, the activists sprayed red paint into the turbine engines of two Airbus Voyager aircraft, used for air-to-air refuelling, and damaged them with crowbars.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the incident in an X post the same day. “The act of vandalism committed at RAF Brize Norton is disgraceful,” he wrote.
The police have said the Palestine Action activists’ action resulted in millions of pounds of criminal damage.
“The disgraceful attack on Brize Norton in the early hours of the morning on Friday 20 June is the latest in a long history of unacceptable criminal damage committed by Palestine Action,” Cooper said in her Monday statement.
Siddiqui, however, said Brize Norton stores aircraft “which are going to be used around the world, but particularly in Gaza”. She added that they have also been used in Syria and Yemen.
Israel’s war in Gaza, which began on October 7, 2023, has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians.
“These aircraft can be used to refuel and have been used to refuel Israeli fighter jets,” Siddiqui said, adding that planes from Brize Norton go to the British air force base in Cyprus, from where they are “dispatched on spy missions and that intelligence is shared with the Israeli government and the Israeli air forces”.
Last year, the British air force said it participated in large-scale aid airdrops to Gaza. The air force said on April 9, 2024, it was involved in airdropping hundreds of tonnes of aid.
“The amount of aid being dropped is an absolute drop in the ocean,” Siddiqui said, adding that the UN says about 2,300 tonnes of aid are required to meet Gaza’s daily needs.
The act of vandalism committed at RAF Brize Norton is disgraceful.
Our Armed Forces represent the very best of Britain and put their lives on the line for us every day.
It is our responsibility to support those who defend us.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) June 20, 2025
How has Palestine Action reacted to the ban threat?
In a statement posted on its X profile on Tuesday, Palestine Action said: “The real crime here is not red paint being sprayed on these warplanes, but the war crimes that have been enabled with those planes because of the UK government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.”
The statement also accuses Starmer of “hypocrisy” since the PM, back in 2003, supported protesters who broke into an RAF base to stop US bombers heading to Iraq. At the time, Starmer was a lawyer.
“I think it’s a very knee-jerk reaction from an embarrassed government, and it’s an overblown reaction,” Siddiqui said.
Siddiqui said it was unprecedented for Palestine Action to face the ban. “The majority of the proscribed groups are international. The majority of them take actions in very, very different ways. Palestine Action would be a complete outlier. It’s a Draconian approach for the government to stifle protests that they just don’t like. It’s genuinely terrifying for anyone who cares about civil liberties in the UK.”
In all, 81 groups are proscribed in the UK under the Terrorism Act 2000. They include political movements with armed wings, like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as armed groups like ISIS (ISIL), al-Qaeda and Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan.
What are other reactions to the possible ban?
On Monday, Sacha Deshmukh, chief executive of Amnesty International UK, said in a news release: “The UK has an overly broad definition of terrorism and proscribing a direct-action protest group like Palestine Action risks an unlawful interference with the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.”
He said regular criminal law and appropriate human rights protections were adequate to respond to direct action protesters such as those affiliated with Palestine Action.
Deshmukh added that the decision to ban Palestine Action risks “the free speech rights of many other activists who are deeply concerned about the plight of Palestinians in the context of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza”.
London-based advocacy organisation CAGE International has also reacted to the announcement. In a statement published on its website, Naila Ahmed, head of campaigns at CAGE International, said: “We stand in absolute solidarity with Palestine Action in their campaign to dismantle the Zionist war machine and bring an end to the genocide in Gaza. Terrorism and proscription laws are now brazenly enabling the continuation of a livestreamed genocide.”
Irish author Sally Rooney, known for books including her 2018 novel Normal People, wrote an opinion piece published by The Guardian on Sunday titled “Israel kills innocent Palestinians. Activists spray-paint a plane. Guess which the UK government calls terrorism.”
Rooney wrote that the activists who vandalised Brize Norton knew what they were doing was illegal. “From the suffragettes to the gay rights movement to the anti-apartheid struggle, genuine political resistance has always involved intentional law-breaking.
“But proscribing an entire organisation under the Terrorism Act is not the same thing as prosecuting particular individuals for specific transgressions … even supporting the group purely in words – as I am doing now – could also constitute a serious legal offence, punishable with a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.”
What’s next?
Cooper has said a draft of a proscription order against Palestine Action will be presented to the British Parliament on June 30.
If passed, the ban would become law, making it illegal to become a member of the group or to invite support for it.
According to the Terrorism Act, the penalties include up to 14 years in prison and a fine.
Siddiqui said the group would challenge the proposed order legally. Palestine Action said in an X post that the group had “instructed lawyers who will fight against the Home Secretary’s attempt to ban our movement”. The group has created an online fundraiser for legal action, accepting donations from supporters. As of 08:00 GMT on Wednesday, the group had received more than 79,000 pounds ($107,000) out of its 100,000-pound ($140,000) goal.
“At this point, Palestine Action is not yet a banned organisation and we will continue to be Palestine Action. I think it is extremely crucial for all people who care for civil liberties to be fighting against such acts,” Siddiqui said.
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