Palestine Action

So Palestine Action has been proscribed. Declared a terrorist group. Just like ISIS, al-Qaeda and… people who chuck a bit of red paint at an arms factory in Oldham. Apparently, spray-painting Elbit Systems and gluing yourself to a fence is now up there with hijacking planes and beheading aid workers. Who knew?

The spelling mistake in the image above? The image was actually taken from the website of Mims Davies, a Conservative MP. I don't think she notices the spelling mistake, despite having been a journalist.

Now, I’m not waving a Palestine Action banner, chanting slogans, or building a catapult out of tofu. But I did think – foolishly, it turns out – that we still lived in a country where you could support an idea without MI5 peering at your bookshelf. Not the methods, mind – just the aims. Like opposing the sale of British weapons to regimes that break international law. How terribly subversive.

But no. Say something like “perhaps we shouldn’t be supplying an apartheid state,” and you risk being labelled a sympathiser of terrorists-with-marker-pens. Because nuance, in modern Britain, is about as welcome as a Palestinian flag at a Tory fundraiser.

Let’s be clear: Palestine Action claim to be non-violent. Disruptive, yes. Unapologetically annoying? Certainly. But no one’s been blown up. No hostages taken. The most serious injury appears to be the trauma suffered by defence contractors discovering that red paint clashes with the office décor.

And yet here we are – you can’t join, donate to, or even appear to support them without risking arrest. We’ve reached the point where expressing sympathy for their stated aims – like ending arms deals with repressive regimes – is enough to get your name flagged next to “actual terrorist” and “person who once retweeted Mick Lynch.”

Meanwhile, if you fancy backing a violent regime, there’s an easier route. Wear a suit, donate to the Labour Party, and call it “defence procurement.”

If you're a citizen with a conscience who wants to protest British complicity in overseas atrocities, you're now expected to go through official channels – like penning a strongly worded email to your MP, which they’ll ignore just before tweeting a grinning selfie from a BAE Systems showroom.

So let’s be clear: I don’t support Palestine Action. But I do believe we shouldn’t be selling missiles to governments that treat international law like tissue paper. If that position is now controversial, then it’s not me who’s radical – it’s the government.

Next, they’ll be banning Amnesty International for “mood disruption” and proscribing Quakers as “repeat offenders of silence.” And if criminal damage is now the red line – drawn in vegan paint – then let’s make room on the terror watchlist. Just Stop Oil? Soup on sunflowers. XR? Blocking roads and gluing themselves to anything vaguely horizontal. Hunt saboteurs? Wrecking quad bikes and blowing whistles at men in red trousers. Shall we chuck them all on the list too?

Or maybe – just maybe – we admit what this is actually about. It’s not the mess. It’s the message. Palestine Action targeted the defence industry, and that’s sacred turf. You can hurl orange powder at Lord Nelson, but don’t you dare scuff a lobbyist’s laminate.

Because this proscription isn’t about law – it’s about control. It’s not “don’t do this.” It’s “don’t believe this.” That’s the line where democracy gives way to something with sharper suits and fewer questions.

You can ban the banners, shut down the meetings, criminalise the slogans – but you can’t extinguish belief. Conviction doesn’t evaporate under pressure; it deepens. The government can proscribe an organisation, but it can’t erase the moral clarity that drives people to oppose injustice. In straying into the territory of thought crime – where opinions and sympathies are policed – it confesses not authority, but insecurity. Thought can’t be switched off. Conscience doesn’t answer to statute. In criminalising belief, they betray the fragility of their rule.

Still, if this is the new legal standard, then we’d best be consistent. Let’s arrest the suffragettes posthumously, proscribe Greenpeace, and raid the Quakers. Equal treatment, after all. Unless, of course, you're smashing things in support of state power. In which case – crack on. Paint’s in aisle three.

This isn’t about justice anymore. It’s about silencing dissent. And if you think that’s fine because it’s “only Palestine Action,” then you’ve missed the point entirely. Because once the principle’s gone, your cause will be next.

And who’ll be left to protest then? Certainly not me – I’ll be too busy filing my pre-arrest clarification with the Home Secretary. Just in case she starts thinking satire is a gateway drug to sedition.

While this blog post does not support Palestine Action, incite violence, or promote illegal activity, it could still fall foul of the UK’s newly stretched definition of “inviting support” under the Terrorism Act. The law is now so broad – and so politically wielded – that merely questioning a proscription, mocking its absurdity, or expressing agreement with a banned group’s stated aims might be enough to attract police attention. That’s the chilling reality: not that what’s written is unlawful, but that it could be treated as if it were, depending on who’s reading and why. 

When satire, criticism and moral conviction become grounds for suspicion, we’re no longer protecting democracy – we’re throttling it.