Terror or Protest? Assessing the UK Government’s Decision to Proscribe Palestine Action

August 15, 2025 - Written by Robert Thorne

Overview

On July 5th, 2025, the UK Government proscribed Palestine Action (PA) as a terrorist group, placing it alongside al-Qa’ida, Boko Haram, and the Islamic State. Founded in 2020, Palestine Action is a UK-based network that aims to cut British financial and militaristic ties with the state of Israel, as part of a more general goal of ending what they describe as “Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime”. They have pursued these aims through participation in wider pro-Palestine protests, as well as direct action against arms manufacturers, financial and legal services firms, and universities, including the occupation and destruction of property.

On June 20th, 2025, four PA members broke into RAF Brize Norton, a military airbase in Oxfordshire, from where British forces have flown to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, another airbase accused of conducting surveillance flights over Gaza. The members vandalised two aircraft by spraying paint onto their exteriors and into their engines, at an estimated cost of £7mn.

In response, on June 23rd, the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced plans to put a draft proscription order before Parliament. Ten days later, on July 3rd, the House of Commons voted by 385 to 26 to proscribe Palestine Action, with their decision taking effect two days later. As a result, it is now illegal in the UK not only to be a member of the network but also to express a belief or opinion in support of it or its actions, or to wear items of clothing bearing its name.

The UK Government’s decision has faced fierce opposition from members of the media, human rights organisations, and the public. Since July 5th, numerous protests have taken place across the UK in support of Palestine Action, with several resulting in mass arrests. The network’s co-founder, Huda Ammori, is currently appealing the ban with the High Court in London; however, the High Court cannot overturn Parliament’s decision. 

While much noise has been made over the Home Secretary’s decision, its impact, and subsequent responses, to fully understand the situation requires an understanding of the legal history of ‘terrorism’ in the UK; in particular, its definition and interpretation.

A RAF Voyager that was vandalised by Palestine Action

Defining Terrorism in the UK

 The Home Secretary’s grounds for proscribing Palestine Action rely on the legal definition of “terrorism”, particular to the UK. This is contained within Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000, passed under Prime Minister Tony Blair, which defines terrorism as any action or threat of action which:

 “involves serious violence against a person; involves serious damage to property; endangers a person’s life; creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public; or is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system

 “[in circumstances where]

 “the use or threat is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public; and the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.”

 Crucially, as the above actions are already crimes punishable under UK law (e.g., assault, homicide), the definition of terrorism serves more as criteria for proscribing terrorist organisations and for clarifying further offences, including membership of a terrorist group or network, the glorifying of terrorist acts, or the raising of funds for terrorist purposes.

Since the Terrorism Act’s passage in 2000, the UK’s definition has received repeated criticism for its inclusion of “damage to property” as a terrorist act. This inclusion is at odds with the findings of many leading scholars of terrorism, as well as the definitions of two of the UK’s closest allies, France and Germany. However, it is not entirely specific to the UK: both the USA, under President Bush’s Executive Order 13224 (made in 2001), and the Republic of Ireland, under the Criminal Justice Act 2005, consider the destruction of property to be terrorist offences.

As a final key point, also contained within the Terrorism Act 2000, the power to proscribe organisations based on the above criteria rests exclusively with the Home Secretary, who must present a proscription order before Parliament (as Yvette Cooper did for Palestine Action on June 30th, 2025).

Reaching the Current Definition

Given the relative recency of the UK Government’s definition of terrorism, and to answer questions regarding its impact on Palestine Action, it is important that we briefly consider the history of said definition and associated offences.

Definitions of terrorism prior to the Northern Ireland conflict

Since the start of the 20th century, many organisations have committed actions that would fall under the Terrorism Act 2000’s criteria. However, until the later stages of the Northern Ireland conflict, none of these were prosecuted as ‘terrorism’, as no related offence (nor legal definition) existed in the UK. This is in part because the word ‘terrorism’ was not widely used to understand such acts until the 1980s; its emergence in popular and legal discourse can be traced to several historic processes, including shifts within the media and the rhetoric of key political figures, particularly in relation to events in the Middle East and Northern Ireland.

Groups that would likely be proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000 today include the Women’s Social & Political Union (commonly known as the suffragettes), who committed at least 300 bombing and arson incidents in the years preceding WWI, causing roughly £100mn in property damage in today’s terms. While over 1000 suffragettes were arrested and imprisoned, none were convicted for ‘terrorism’.

The same is true of the original Irish Republican Army (IRA), which orchestrated a large-scale bombing campaign across England in 1939–40. While mostly targeting infrastructure, the campaign resulted in the deaths of 10 civilians. The British state arrested dozens of IRA members, charging most of them with the illegal possession and use of explosives, but not ‘terrorism’. Similarly, members of the anarchist Angry Brigade, who conducted 25 minor bombings of property from 1970 to 1972, and the Welsh nationalist Meibion Glyndŵr, who committed more than 200 arson attacks in the 1980s, were not charged for ‘terrorism’.

During the Northern Ireland conflict

The bulk of the violence that occurred during the Northern Ireland conflict, which lasted from the late 1960s until 1998, was felt within Northern Ireland itself, manifesting in targeted killings, lynchings, bombings, kidnappings, and assaults. However, both main parties to the conflict, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), carried out bombings in mainland Britain against civilian and non-civilian targets.

Throughout the 1970s and 80s, the UK Parliament passed several ad hoc and temporary pieces of legislation to proscribe organisations and grant the UK’s security services emergency powers, in response to the ongoing conflict. These were collectively known as the Prevention of Terrorism Acts, the last of which was passed in 1989, and defined terrorism as: “the use of violence for political ends … [including] any use of violence for the purpose of putting the public or any section of the public in fear”. As can be seen, the short definition makes no mention of property damage.

Entering the 1990s, however, the PIRA began targeting the City of London as part of a campaign to disrupt the UK’s rapidly growing financial industry. This culminated in the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing: an attack which, while killing only one person, caused over £750mn in damage in today’s terms (where the bomb itself cost just £3,000 to manufacture). Several scholars have cited this strategy as perhaps the PIRA’s most successful in terms of the strain it put on the UK economy, and thus, the threat it represented to the British state.

Consequently, the Northern Ireland Act 1996 expanded the list of actions that fell under ‘terrorism’ to include property damage. This list would be incorporated into the Terrorism Act 2000, which was designed to condense all the legislation passed during the Northern Ireland conflict into one monolithic bill while creating a comprehensive definition for terrorism in UK law.

Further terrorism legislation in the Global War on Terror

Less than one year after the UK Parliament passed the Terrorism Act, the September 11th attacks initiated the Global War on Terror (GWOT), in which the UK has been a leading party since its beginning.

Using the definition of terrorism established in the Terrorism Act 2000, successive UK Governments have passed further related legislation, expanding the list of terrorist offences and the powers of the state. These include the connected Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (since repealed), and Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011, which drastically increased the powers of the Home Secretary; the Terrorism Act 2006, which criminalised statements “encouraging” or “glorifying” the commission of terrorism; and the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, which made it an offence to publish images or wear items of clothing which might arouse suspicion that one is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation.

While not directly related to terrorism, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 has also proven key in narrowing the boundaries by which an action might be considered within the right to protest, thus blurring the lines between freedom of speech, assembly, and association, and criminal activity. This Act drastically expanded police and judicial powers relating to the right to protest, including the criminalisation of “unacceptable” protests, the requirement for protests to be overseen by senior police, and increased maximum sentences for “public nuisance offences”.

Destruction caused by Bishopsgate attack in 1993.

 From Definition to Praxis

The Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation is based on their actions involving “serious damage to property”. This, in turn, is based on the definition of terrorism established within the Terrorism Act 2000 above, itself a legacy of the Northern Ireland conflict.

However, other acts, passed within the context of the GWOT, are key to the impact of this decision. In particular, Section 1(3) of the Terrorism Act 2006 and Section 2(3) of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 make it an offence for members of the public to now “glorify” Palestine Action’s actions, wear a Palestine Action t-shirt, or express an opinion in support of the group, and Section 12(2) of the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 gives the Home Secretary considerable extrajudicial powers to track PA members’ movements using ankle monitors. Finally, given that pro-PA demonstrations can now be construed as glorifying terrorism, it is unlikely the police would approve applications to hold them; hence, their going ahead would violate several sections of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.

In this regard, it’s worth noting that the Home Secretary has not sought a proscription order for several other groups using the same tactics as Palestine Action (i.e., “serious damage to property”), for the intentions outlined in the Terrorism Act 2000, as quoted above. Such groups include Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, and the far-right networks responsible for the 2024 England riots, Homeland and Patriotic Alternative—all of which are active today.

This discrepancy highlights the fact that, while the Terrorism Act 2000 provides a de jure fixed definition for terrorism in UK law, it is ultimately the Home Secretary’s decision as to where this definition should be applied. Thus, there remains a strong argument that ‘terrorism’ is still a de facto politicised or partisan term in the UK, with the Home Secretary’s judgement carrying inordinate weight.

Indeed, critics of Palestine Action’s proscription have argued that the Home Secretary’s decision has been made largely in defence of the UK’s ongoing diplomatic and material support for Israel, as well as Israeli attention towards the group. Freedom of information requests submitted by Palestine Action last year found that the Israeli Embassy in London had repeatedly tried to intervene in court cases relating to PA members. However, the UK Government refused to release further information, stating that doing so could prejudice UK-Israel relations.

Within the UK, several journalists have expressed fear of speaking out against the ban. Meanwhile, international organisations, including the United Nations and Amnesty International, have fiercely criticised its effect on civil liberties in the UK and have called for a removal of the property clause from the 2000 Act. Various groups and citizens’ networks have organised protests in support of Palestine Action; however, few of these have focused on the UK’s legal definition of terrorism as a deciding factor in PA’s proscription, nor the legislation which would criminalise open support of the network. Responding to these protests, UK police have made several mass arrests, thereby enforcing the 2006 and 2019 Acts above.

Demonstrators outside The Royal Courts of Justice wave Palestinian flags.

Going Forward

 Regarding the immediate future, Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori has applied to appeal the network’s ban within the UK’s High Court. The Court approved her application on July 30th, without calling for a temporary block on PA’s proscription. Crucially, owing to the constitutional set-up of the UK, the High Court cannot overturn the UK Parliament’s decision: it can only find the decision to be in violation of existing laws, and call for a review—a decision which Parliament can choose to ignore. Furthermore, the Court will not begin reviewing Ammori’s appeal until November, and no hearing is likely to be held until summer 2026, by which time the proscription will still be in place.

Despite criticisms, the UK Government shows no signs of changing its decision, which received cross-party support within the House of Commons, including from Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, and Reform MPs. On August 5th, Yvette Cooper made a statement to the Press in defence of PA’s proscription, stressing that the group were “violent” and had “disturbing” plans for the future.

Regarding amendments to legislation, the only recent proposition has been to expand the legal definition of terrorism in light of the 2024 Southport stabbings. Both the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and the Home Secretary have expressed a desire to remove the need for a political or ideological cause from the definition included in the Terrorism Act 2000, thereby broadening the number of actions that might count as terrorism by reducing the threshold for intentions.

Despite many arrests, no one has yet been charged for their participation in mass protests. However, many of those arrested have been released on bail with the potential to face charges, and if found guilty of supporting Palestine Action, could face 14 years in prison. Given the increasing scale of protests, there are worries that further arrests and subsequent charges could overwhelm judicial resources.

As a proposed loophole, several PA affiliates have formed a new group with the Home Secretary’s name, Yvette Cooper. However, this has no legal basis as a workaround, as Section 3(6) of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows the Home Secretary to identify aliases for proscribed organisations, and, even where an alias hasn’t been formally identified, the police and courts may still arrest and charge members under reasonable suspicion that they are members of the same organisation operating under a new name.

 In Summary

 Summarising the above, the Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group, while controversial, is within the bounds of the existing law, thanks to legislation passed from 2000 onwards in light of the Northern Ireland conflict and the Global War on Terror. Whether such legislation is ‘just’—that is, within the bounds of international norms, scholarly consensus, or indeed, the UK’s own democratic tradition—remains a matter of debate.

That said, and perhaps due to a limited understanding of the UK’s unique definition of terrorism relative to other states and its own history, such debates do not seem to have appeared within the media and wider public conversation. Instead, the focus remains on a single network, Palestine Action, for whom it is unlikely the Home Secretary will revoke their decision in the near future, owing to cross-parliamentary support, the UK’s ongoing support (or lack of open opposition) vis-à-vis Israel, and the inability of the UK’s judiciary to challenge parliamentary sovereignty. Beyond changing legislation, it is unclear how supporters of Palestine Action might (legally) proceed.

Written by Robert Thorne

Analyst on the Security and Terrorism Desk