Liberty on what the Court of Appeal judgment on Palestine Action means
JVL Introduction
Liberty is Britain’s premier civil rights organisation that “challenge injustice, defends freedom and campaign to make sure everyone in the UK is treated fairly”.
It has written on the subject of counter-terror that:
“The UK’s definition on terrorism is so broad that it risks undermining people’s fundamental rights, including free speech and protest. We’re calling for a clearer definition and tighter laws to prevent the misuse of counter-terror powers, now and in the future.”
In this post it dissects the Court of Appeal’s judgment on the proscription of Palestine Action and calls for “amending the terrorism definition itself so that it only catches the kinds of actions and behaviour it actually seeks to target”.
Not unreasonable, you would have thought!
This article was originally published by Liberty on Mon 15 Jun 2026. Read the original here.
Breaking down the Court of Appeal judgment on Palestine Action’s proscription
On 15 June 2026, the Court of Appeal upheld the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. Liberty’s legal and policy experts break down the judgment, alongside the wider implications for protest, direct action, and the UK’s counter-terror laws.
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There have been many criticisms of the definition of terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2000. When the law was introduced Jack Straw said it would be mainly concerned with domestic terrorism, whatever that was. He accused the Tory spokesman of having a ‘fevered imagination’ for believing it could be used against resistance movements abroad.
All of this has proven to be a lie. The definition is deliberately wide because it allows the Home Secretary a wide discretion to label as ‘terrorist’ any group hostile to a state the UK is friends with.
So the PKK, Kurdish Workers Party, is proscribed because we are friends with Erdogan whereas the PYD, its Syrian counterpart is not proscribed because it provided the footsoldiers for the US war against ISIS.
The Terrorism Act is being used precisely as intended. To chill free speech and to make anyone commenting on opponents of Israel to fear what the consequences of commenting on Hamas or Hezbollah might be. Which is why I’m facing a prosecution under s.12(1) of the TA in August this year.
The reality is that state terrorism is not even recognised and we are only allowed, as with Myanamar, to support groups fighting regimes that the UK also opposes.
There is much more to be said about the dire Court of Appeal decision. Its ludicrous references to the peaceful nature of the Suffragettes was pure historical ignorance. Its repeated invoking of ‘national security’ when of course no one’s life is jeopardised by supporting proscribed groups.
If the TA Act had been in force 40 years ago then you would have supported the ANC at your peril.