UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/13/uk-ban-palestine-action-unlawful-high-court-judges-rule?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Posted by BarbaricOklahoma

21 Comments

  1. Significant_Sale6172 on

    Wonder if people defending arresting pensioners for holding signs will apologise and shut up. Somehow doubt it.

  2. Good!

    Individuals who break the law need to be prosecuted, not proscribe an entire group advocating for peace as terrorists.

  3. The ban is still in place pending an appeal, so I suspect a lot of people will be arrested tomorrow

  4. Necessary-Product361 on

    Will the government face any consequence from arresting hundreds of peaceful protesters?

  5. Bad day for the centrist liberals their two favourite things of proscribing anyone who threatens the status quo and blindly following laws and rulings without question going against each other is gonna make their heads spin

  6. Ooft. The group that jumped over a wooden picket fence less than a meter high that was **THE MOST IMPORTANT AND PRIZED ASSET IN THE UK AIR FORCE AND HENCE PROTECTED BY INCREDIBLY ROBUST SECURITY MEASURES** and then splashed paint over an empty plane is **NOT** a terrorist organization? Oh. Wow.

  7. You can find the full judgment, and a press release summary [here](https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/huda-ammori-v-secretary-of-state-for-the-home-department-3/) for those interested.

    I haven’t read the judgment in full, but from the press release the key part seems to be this:

    > Overall, however the court considered that the proscription of Palestine Action was disproportionate. A very small number of Palestine Action’s activities amounted to acts of terrorism within the definition of section 1 of the 2000 Act. For these, and for Palestine Action’s other criminal activities, the general criminal law remains available. The nature and scale of Palestine Action’s activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.

    Yes, Palestine Action was doing some terrorism. It was doing violent protest that is not protected in law, and the criminal justice system can deal with that. But most of what it was doing was non-violent, otherwise-lawful protest. If they were *just* doing terrorism, then banning them might be fine.

    As others have noted, though, they are still banned for now, pending a decision on remedies and appeals.

  8. Sorry-Programmer9826 on

    If the government are smart they’ll accept the ruling and not try to fight it.

    This has clearly blown up in the government’s face in a way i doubt they expected. I don’t think they thought they’d be arresting pensioners for holding signs. This gives them an out and they should take it

  9. Sorry-Programmer9826 on

    The whole terrorism act needs to be relooked at in the light of this. The definition of terrorism is ludicrously broad

    > The use or threat must also be for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.

    >The specific actions included are:

    >- serious violence against a person;

    >- serious damage to property;

    >- endangering a person’s life (other than that of the person committing the action);

    >- creating a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public; and

    >- action designed to seriously interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

    So if you are in the same organisation as someone who causes property damage or disrupts an electronic system you are in a terrorist organisation.

    It devalues the word terrorist which ought to be reserved as one of our most serious crimes

  10. i had so many people yelling at me on here for expressing my belief that this ban was an authoritarian overreach; happy to see that the courts agree with me

  11. PartiallyRibena on

    Good. Throw the book at the criminals who damaged a plane, and the bastard who hit a police officer with a sledgehammer.

    But to proscribe the whole organisation felt very heavy handed, and it seems the government couldn’t present sufficient evidence to show the organisation deserved to be on a par with classic terrorist organisations.

  12. According_Parfait680 on

    So we’re a country that supposedly prides itself on civic values of freedom of expression, and have those values baked into law. Our courts rule that, actually, criminalizing people as ‘terrorists’ for expressing public support for a protest group opposing our government’s backing of another government that is engaged in some pretty high profile persecution of a particular ethnic group doesn’t fit with those values or the legal inscription of those values. And STILL the government digs its heels in. What is it trying to achieve?

  13. BobBobBobBobBobDave on

    When it was banned, one thing some ministers said to help justify it was that they had intelligence that PA were planning to escalate things with more serious criminal acts.

    The court didn’t seem to think so and the statements from ministers so far don’t reference this.

    Were they just making that up?

  14. Regardless of how you feel about the group, the move to ban them as a terrorist group was a kneejerk response without any legal basis, solely because of which country the group targeted. Had their opposition been against any other nation, there is zero chance they would have been labeled a terrorist group so quickly.

  15. I feel like this might actually be the best available result for Starmer. It’s over now and in the power of the courts and he’s not had to U-turn. Im sure he regrets starting this

  16. BlackSpinedPlinketto on

    I’m glad we at least still have a high court that will hold the government accountable for their actions when they are illegal.

    I’m no fan of Palestine or Isreal, but it was clear that the decision to brand the group terrorists was taken to appease Isreal.