MPs have backed the government’s move to ban the direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, despite warnings that this would have a “chilling effect” on protest.
Legislation passed in the Commons yesterday, as MPs voted 385 to 26, a majority of 359 in favour of proscribing the group under the Terrorism Act 2000.
While security minister Dan Jarvis told MPs that Palestine Action as not a “legitimate protest group”, others criticised the move and described it as “draconian overreach” and likened the group to the Suffragettes.
Zarah Sultana, the independent MP for Coventry South, told the Commons: “To equate a spray can of paint with a suicide bomb isn’t just absurd, it is grotesque. It is a deliberate distortion of the law to chill dissent, criminalise solidarity and suppress the truth.”
The motion is expected to be debated and voted on by the House of Lords today before it becomes law.
Meanwhile, pro-Palestine demonstrators have hit out at the government, accusing it of “hypocrisy” as it prepares to ban an activist group under anti-terror law.
The decision to proscribe the group comes after two planes were vandalised at RAF Brize Norton on June 20.
Speaking to The Independent while demonstrating outside parliament, David Collins, a retired veteran with no links to Palestine Action and who served with the Marines for nine years, said: “In comparison to some of the atrocities that this government is approving – and sending arms to Israel – amongst some people that is justified action. They are warplanes that can be repaired. There was nobody hurt. I would say that is a legitimate form of protest.”
Jonathan Fluxman, 69, a retired doctor who was also demonstrating on Wednesday, said a ban was “utterly ridiculous”. “Palestine action are a direct action group. They are avowedly non-violent and I think this is much more about them embarrassing the British government by being incredibly effective in terms of interrupting the flow of weapons from Britain to Israel to try and stop the awful, awful genocide”, he said.
Four people, including “a man who blocked the gates of Downing Street with his mobility scooter”, were arrested following the protest in Westminster, the Metropolitan Police has said.
On Tuesday, two more arrests were made after Palestine Action claimed to have blockaded the entrance of an Israeli defence company’s UK headquarters. A spokesperson for the group said activists had blocked the entrance to Elbit Systems in Bristol and covered it in red paint “to symbolise Palestinian bloodshed”.
Kat, another protester demonstrating outside parliament on Wednesday morning, accused the government of a “complete clampdown on our right to protest”. She said: “There are many groups that use the same tactics and have used the same tactics in the past and they’ve never had this extreme a response to it. I think they're shutting it down because its effective. It is making an impact on the profits of Elbit Systems who is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer.”
But home secretary Yvette Cooper said “violence and serious criminal damage has no place in legitimate protest. The right to protest and the right to free speech are the cornerstone of our democracy and there are countless campaign groups that freely exercise those rights.”
The prime minister, Keir Starmer, said the action at RAF Brize Norton was “disgraceful” and an “act of vandalism”.
While the government is rushing through parliament absurd legislation to proscribe Palestine Action, the real terrorism is being committed in Gaza
The shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, also condemned the group, saying: “This attack on Britain’s military is totally unjustified. They are undermining the very organisation that protects us all. Palestine Action should be pursued, prosecuted and banned for what they have done. In this country we settle disagreements through debate and democracy, not through acts of vandalism and violence.”
A spokesperson for Palestine Action said: “While the government is rushing through parliament absurd legislation to proscribe Palestine Action, the real terrorism is being committed in Gaza. Palestine Action affirms that direct action is necessary in the face of Israel’s ongoing crimes against humanity of genocide, apartheid and occupation, and to end British facilitation of those crimes.”
Opening the debate in the Commons on Wednesday, security minister Dan Jarvis said proscription of the group would “reaffirm the UK’s zero tolerance approach to terrorism, regardless of its form or underlying ideology”.
“Proscription is rightly ideologically neutral. It judges an organisation on its actions and the actions it is willing to deploy in pursuit of its cause”, he said, adding that proscription was “one of the most powerful counter-terrorism tools available to government. Any decision to proscribe is taken with great care and following rigorous consideration.”
Unveiling the intention to ban the group following the incident on June 23, Cooper said it was the latest in a “long history of unacceptable criminal damage committed by Palestine Action”.
The group, which intends to bring a legal challenge against the government, has staged a series of demonstrations in recent months, including spraying the London offices of Allianz Insurance with red paint over its alleged links to Elbit, and vandalising Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire.
Palestine Action’s website says it uses disruptive tactics to target “corporate enablers of the Israeli military-industrial complex” and seeks to make it “impossible for these companies to profit from the oppression of Palestinians”.
Some 81 organisations have been proscribed under the 2000 Act, including Islamist groups such as Hamas and al-Qaeda, far-right groups such as National Action, and the Russian private military company the Wagner Group.
The draft order laid on Monday also lists neo-Nazi group Maniacs Murder Cult and far-right nationalist group Russian Imperial Movement, including its paramilitary arm, Russian Imperial Legion, to be proscribed in the UK.
Belonging to or expressing support for a proscribed organisation, along with a number of other actions, are criminal offences carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
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