Palestine Action ban “sinister and unprecedented”
JVL Introduction
Daniel Finn writing in Jacobin adds significant insights to the discussion about government plans to designate Palestine Action a terrorist organisation – a move he calls “a disgraceful authoritarian measure from a Labour government that fears having its own complicity with crimes against humanity exposed in the courts.”
He cites a legal expert, “the Secret Barrister,” explaining the basic principle embedded in British common law that permits juries to pass a “perverse verdict” or “jury nullification”. Finn says criminalizing PA itself is a way to avoid having the state’s arguments tested by the British legal system.
The absence of evidence to justify proscribing PA under the Terrorism Act is striking, Finn says, noting that some of the pressure for a ban came from We Believe in Israel, a “microgroup” with “an outsize influence inside the Labour Party” which seems to have been granted access to classified documents.
An article in the Times hinted at Home Office suspicions about the group’s funding and said doubts about its “transparency and accountability” had been raised by NGO Monitor which Finn describes as “a surrogate organization of the Israeli government that demonizes all supporters of Palestinian human rights.”
The ban on PA needs to be fought urgently for what it is – part of a wider pattern of attacks on the right to protest, “including the trumped-up charges against the organizers of a Palestine solidarity march in London earlier this year.”
Click here to view George Monbiot passionately arguing the same case in a new Double Down News video.
NWI
This article was originally published by Jacobin on Thu 26 Jun 2025. Read the original here.
Keir Starmer’s Palestine Action Ban Is a Threat to Democracy
Britain’s government is banning the group Palestine Action for its role in nonviolent direct action against Israeli arms factories — a sinister and unprecedented move from a government that wants to suppress opposition to the Gaza genocide.
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These words need to be read more widely. Little chance of that when mainstream media are in lockstep with the UK government to help Israel’s hard right politicians continue their atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank. At the next election, I’ll be voting for candidates who support Palestinian rights and heed the judgment of the ICC that war crimes and genocide are being committed by Netanyahu’s army.