High Court rules that you can't pretend retired vicars and disabled people are terrorists

In a decision that should spell the end of Yvette Cooper’s political career, the High Court has ruled the ban on Palestine Action is unlawful.

The proscription of Palestine Action meant not only was it an offence to be a member of the group, but even to express support. As a result, thousands of peaceful protesters, who had never committed a crime, were arrested on terrorism charges. It’s a national scandal.

Before we go any further, I must warn you that you still cannot support Palestine Action in the UK. The ban remains in place until the appeals process is complete, and our vindictive government is absolutely going to appeal.

The home secretary proscribed Palestine Action last year, despite it never having carried out a violent act of terrorism. Even worse, British politicians misrepresented Palestine Action and falsely accused its members of crimes. Case in point being the Filton Six who were cleared of aggravated burglary — an accusation that politicians had held up as proof they are terrorists.

A total of 1,630 people were arrested following the ban on Palestine Action up until September 2025. I’m unclear how many people have been arrested since, but it seems to be in the ballpark of 3,000 according to estimates I’ve seen. I can confirm that 86% of terrorism arrests are now in relation to Palestine Action, many for holding up signs at protests or posting on social media.

In other words, police arrest seven times more people for terrorism than they would have done if the ban was never put in place. If that doesn’t show you it was disproportionate, what does?

We know the proscription was politically motivated, thanks to a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary — Palestine Action: The Truth Behind the Ban. A leaked Home Office email from 2023 instructed officials to “reassure Elbit Systems UK and the wider sector affected by Palestine Action that the government cares about the harm the group is causing the private sector.”

At the time of the email, government officials were regularly meeting with Elbit Systems which, let’s not forget, is an Israeli arms manufacturer. While Israel was committing genocide, reassuring Elbit was our government’s main priority, rather than imposing a full arms embargo.

The Dispatches documentary suggested the meetings with Elbit influenced the government’s position on Palestine Action. In other words, it let the arms manufacturer of a genocidal rogue state decide what counts as terrorism.

An internal intelligence report indicated the proscription was partly justified by the monetary damages caused by vandalism in Bristol, Leicester, and Kent. Only three of 385 documented actions were deemed to meet a “terrorism offence” threshold. None of those actions involved killing people or terrorising the wider public.

A senior Home Office official told Dispatches there was “disquiet” among staff, saying there was a widespread belief that the proscription was “wrong” and could be used to curtail broader protest rights.

In November 2025, Private Eye reported that a PR firm working for Elbit Systems planted a story in The Times, falsely claiming Palestine Action was under investigation for receiving funding from Iran. Government ministers amplified this claim and implied they might have classified information that Palestine Action was planning acts of terrorism. This was staggering dishonesty.

The proscription was clearly a political decision to please Israel and its arms manufacturer. It was an extraordinary attack on the right to free speech. Who can forget the images of elderly vicars and blind wheelchair users being dragged away from peaceful protests? Who can forget all the people whose homes were raided at the break of dawn for social media posts? Even if you disagree with the methods of Palestine Action, you must surely agree this was disproportionate. No one in a free society should be treated as a terrorist for attending a peaceful protest or posting on social media. At a time when Israel was committing genocide, our government deprived us of our free speech to keep that genocide going.

Hopefully, the government’s appeal can be quickly rejected and the overturning of the proscription can be made official because an awful lot of people are facing terror charges and those charges need to be quashed. The wrongly accused need to be compensated and they need an official apology. Yvette Cooper must resign, and Keir Starmer, who was already hanging by a thread over the paedophile stuff, must go with her.

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