When the Labour government introduced anti-terrorism legislation 25 years ago, it stressed that it was targeting extreme crimes. “Terrorism involves the threat or use of serious violence for political, religious or ideological ends. It … aims to create a climate of extreme fear,” said Jack Straw, the then home secretary.
Some MPs still feared that a group like Greenpeace, which had destroyed genetically modified crops and temporarily halted nuclear weapons production at Aldermaston, might be proscribed. Mr Straw reassured them that such bans would be used only when absolutely necessary; he knew of “no evidence whatever” that the actions of the environmental group “would fall remotely under [its] scope”.
UN experts warned this week that “acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism”. Yet on Wednesday, MPs voted – by 385 to 26 – to proscribe Palestine Action under the 2000 legislation. The Lords were expected to approve the order on Thursday. Unless a high court judge orders its suspension at a hearing on Friday, from Saturday, being a member of or simply expressing support for the group will carry a maximum penalty of 14 years. The ban was announced days after Palestine Action claimed responsibility for breaking into an RAF base and spraying paint on to planes that it claimed were supporting the Israeli military campaign. Four people have been charged.
Hundreds of lawyers, cultural figures and groups such as Amnesty International have condemned the ban. It is lamentable that MPs backed it. But cynically listing two white-supremacist organisations on the same order – Maniacs Murder Cult, whose members have claimed violent attacks globally, and Russian Imperial Movement, which seeks to create a new Russian imperial state – made it harder for legislators to vote it down.
The British state has plenty of legislation to deal with direct action. Palestine Action activists have been arrested and charged with criminal damage, violent disorder and burglary. The suspicion is that frequent acquittals have led to this order. Pouring paint over military aircraft and buildings, and tossing smoke bombs, does not sound like the kind of extreme act that the public rightly reviles as terrorism. Rather, the ban appears designed not only to silence supporters but to reduce public sympathy by placing the group on a par with Islamic State and the extreme-right group National Action.
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, alleges that Palestine Action’s methods “have become more aggressive, with its members demonstrating a willingness to use violence”. The public will need to see evidence of this – rather than take such claims on trust – if their faith in the state is not to be undermined.
Palestine Action has targeted property to challenge a war in which tens of thousands of civilians have been killed. The group’s protests embarrass the government: the UK continues to supply equipment to Israel’s military as it slaughters Palestinians. Despite overwhelming evidence that war crime is piling on war crime in Gaza, and reportedly contrary to the advice of its own lawyers, the British government will not say that Israel has broken international law. The government should be doing all it can to end this conflict, not to criminalise protests against it. But you do not need to sympathise with Palestine Action’s aims to believe that its proscription sets a chilling precedent and undermines democracy.
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