UK home secretary Yvette Cooper has vowed to proscribe Palestine Action, an anti-Israel direct-action protest group. Proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000 will make it illegal to belong to, or express support for, Palestine Action, with possible prison sentences of up to 14 years for those who do. No matter what you think about these activists, this is a move that threatens free speech and should be opposed.
The usual suspects have all come out in support of Palestine Action, albeit for entirely the wrong reasons. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, novelist Sally Rooney and eco-vandals Just Stop Oil have all denounced Cooper’s decision as an attack on ‘peaceful protest’. This is disingenuous to say the least.
There is nothing ‘peaceful’ about Palestine Action’s protests, all of which involve acts of vandalism, usually targeting factories that supply weapons to Israel. Last week, activists broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and damaged two planes. Some reports suggest that the damage could cost at least £30million to repair and may even be irreparable.
There is no question that Palestine Action is a vile organisation. Its acts of vandalism against those supplying weapons to the Israeli military provide tacit support to Hamas, the anti-Semitic terror group that started the war in Gaza, even if this is not an explicit element of the group’s ideology.
Palestine Action has also targeted Jewish-owned businesses. In May, it daubed an office in north London with red paint and smashed its windows. Palestine Action claimed this business had links to Elbit Systems, an Israeli arms manufacturer, yet the company denies any such connection. Although Palestine Action says it renounces anti-Semitism, smashing up Jewish-owned businesses hardly helps its case. Some of its members are now being investigated for racially aggravated criminal damage.
This is why claims that Palestine Action’s proscription is a straightforward assault on ‘peaceful protest’ are moronic. Palestine Action has attacked Jewish businesses. It has vandalised essential defence assets. There is a difference between peaceful protest and attacking vital infrastructure, especially at a time of heightened international tension. The idea that activists should be free to vandalise or attack RAF aircraft, while appealing to a ‘right to protest’, is completely ridiculous. Those involved in vandalism deserve punishment, and when that vandalism compromises national security, that punishment should be severe.
Nevertheless, the decision to proscribe Palestine Action is equally wrongheaded. Proscription requires the home secretary to decide that Palestine Action is ‘concerned in terrorism’. While many in the public may see Palestine Action as a threat to Britain’s interests, it would be hard to justify designating it as a terrorist organisation. Its activists have not set out to target human beings and nor have they carried out acts of political violence (although they have allegedly attacked police officers in the course of their stunts). Palestine Action may well engage in criminal activity, but the idea that it belongs on the same list of organisations as ISIS or Hamas would strike most right-thinking people as draconian and wrong.
Proscribing a group under our anti-terror laws not only criminalises those who are directly involved – it also criminalises expressions of support. This is a clear attack on free speech. As such, the power to proscribe groups ought to be used far more sparingly. Indeed, many groups are proscribed by the Home Office despite posing no threat to the UK. Some on the banned list have actively protected British interests in the recent past. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), for instance, was banned in March 2001. Yet even though the PKK went on to play an essential role in the West’s fight against ISIS in Syria, it remains a criminal offence to wave the PKK flag. Once a group is proscribed, it is extremely difficult to remove it from the banned list, as this requires the home secretary to take active steps to do so.
It should not be a crime to express support for a protest group, even when that group breaks the law. While Palestine Action’s protests are often reprehensible and clearly criminal, that does not make them terrorists. Indeed, it makes a mockery of our anti-terror laws to treat them as such. There are already plenty of criminal statutes that can be used to prosecute those who vandalise essential state infrastructure, and these have rightly led to harsh sentences in similar cases.
Proscribing organisations that have no terrorist intent simply expands the reach of the criminal law over speech and opinion. Expressing support for Palestine Action may be repugnant, but it should not be a crime.
Luke Gittos is a spiked columnist and author.
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