Four people have been arrested on suspicion of a terror offence after two Voyager aircraft were damaged at RAF Brize Norton in an action claimed by the campaign group Palestine Action.
In a statement, counter-terrorism policing south-east said: “A 29-year-old woman of no fixed abode, and two men aged 36 and 24, both from London, were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, contrary to section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000. A 41-year-old woman, of no fixed abode, was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.
“The arrests, which took place on Thursday in Newbury, Berkshire, and in London, are in connection with an incident in the early hours of [last] Friday during which damage was caused to two aircraft at RAF Brize Norton. Those arrested are currently in police custody while enquiries are ongoing.”
The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said on Monday that the pro-Palestinian campaign group would be proscribed under anti-terror laws. If approved in parliament, this would make membership and support of the group illegal.
She said Palestine Action had a “long history” of criminal damage and had targeted “financial firms, charities, universities and government buildings”.
“The UK’s defence enterprise is vital to the nation’s national security and this government will not tolerate those that put that security at risk,” Cooper said. “Its activities meet the threshold set out in the statutory tests established under the Terrorism Act 2000.”
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Palestine Action released a statement condemning the arrests, saying they amounted to crackdown on “non-violent protests” opposing Israel’s war in Gaza.
The move to proscribe Palestine Action has been widely condemned by MPs including Diane Abbott, who said the government “seems confused between protest and terrorism”.
Palestine Action said the state had not proscribed activist groups that had taken similar action, and noted that Keir Starmer as a barrister had once represented an anti-war protester who broke into RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire to sabotage US bombers before they flew to Iraq in 2003.
Josh Richards, who was among the Fairford Five, was cleared after a jury failed to reach a verdict.
