A MEMBER of the House of Lords urged UK ministers to crack down on Palestine Action at the request of a US arms company.
Lord Dannatt wrote to two separate Home Office ministers asking them to address the “threat” the group posed after its activists caused damage to a factory run by US tech and arms firm Teledyne.
But only after the firm – which the peer has been a paid advisor for since 2022 – asked him to do so according to The Guardian.
Four activists were convicted of conspiring to damage Teledyne’s factory in Wales after they broke in and caused an estimated £1m ($1.33m) worth of damage, according to prosecutors.
Dannatt wrote to then Home Secretary Suella Braverman after speaking with the factory’s general manager and another senior Teledyne member on December 22 2022, reportedly warning that “the threat from Palestine Action has more widespread implications for security and the economy within the United Kingdom”.
He added: “[I] would be very grateful to receive assurance that the threat from Palestine Action is fully recognised by our security services and appropriate action [is] either planned or being taken”.
Dannatt then went on to say that he had “undertaken to brief the Teledyne main board in the United States that the threat from Palestine Action in the UK is being suitably addressed”.
In court in May 2023, Alex Stuart of Dyfed-Powys police – who was in charge of the investigation into the activists – expressed concerns that Dannatt was seeking to have input into in the case.
“Lord Dannatt was chief of the army general staff. He’s now a life peer. He has an invested interest [sic] in this aspect of UK trade and investment, particularly military projects,” Stuart wrote in an email to his superiors at the time.
He said that Dannatt “wants to have some input” in the investigation, adding: “it would not be wise to have a member of the House of Lords poking around in a live criminal case”.
The prosecution denied there was any evidence Dannatt had tried to “influence” the investigation, saying he was “just asking for information”, The judge agreed with that assertion.
The Guardian also reported that Dannatt contacted the government again in September 2024 after “attacks on Teledyne facilities continued and the company asked [him] to raise their concerns again”.
In a letter to Dan Jarvis, the Labour security minister, Dannatt once again disclosed his role. Under the same letterhead, he said he would be “very grateful to receive assurance from the current government that the threat posed by Palestine Action continues to be fully recognised by our security services and that appropriate action is being taken.”
Dannatt is currently under investigation by the Westminster authorities over two separate sets of allegations that he broke parliamentary rules that forbid lobbying.
The move to ban Palestine Action came after two Voyager aircraft were damaged at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on June 20, an incident it subsequently claimed, which police said caused about £7 million worth of damage.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced plans to proscribe Palestine Action three days later, saying the vandalism of the planes was “disgraceful” and the group had a “long history of unacceptable criminal damage”.
