The idiocy of the Palestine Action ban

What must have been going through the minds of the police as they arrested an elderly retired priest last weekend on suspicion of supporting a proscribed terrorist group? Eighty-three-year-old Reverend Sue Parfitt was protesting against the UK government’s ban on Palestine Action, a direct-action group that uses vandalism and sabotage to protest against the war in Gaza. She was one of 29 people arrested at a demo on Saturday, held in London on the day that the ban came into force.

There is no doubt that Palestine Action is a vile organisation. Last month, its members allegedly vandalised aircraft at a British military base. Prior to this, some of them smashed up a Jewish-run business, breaking its windows and spraying it with red graffiti, on the (unproven and likely false) assumption that it had connections to an Israeli arms manufacturer. Activists decked out in Palestine Action’s signature boiler suits have even torn down ribbons memorialising the hostages kidnapped by Hamas, claiming they represent ‘Jewish supremacy’.

We should also have no truck with those downplaying Palestine Action’s behaviour, whether it’s MPs like Zarah Sultana or novelist Sally Rooney. This is not ‘peaceful protest’, nor is it simply ‘pro-Palestine’ or anti-war – it is criminal vandalism, driven by a blind hatred of the Jewish State.

Yet as grotesque as these stunts are, they surely do not constitute terrorism by any reasonable definition. The Home Office’s decision to classify Palestine Action as a terror outfit under the Terrorism Act 2000 puts it on a par with al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hezbollah and Hamas – Islamist extremist groups that have all carried out mass-casualty attacks. As part of the same statutory instrument put to parliament last week, updating the list of proscribed groups, Palestine Action was banned alongside the Maniacs Murder Cult and the Russian Imperial Movement. The Maniacs Murder Cult combines neo-Nazi and Satanist ideology and has been linked to various violent hate crimes, including a plot to poison Jewish children en masse. The Russian Imperial Movement is an ultra-nationalist paramilitary group that has fought alongside Russia in Ukraine and has also been linked to bombing campaigns in western Europe. Whatever one thinks of Palestine Action, it cannot reasonably be said to pose a threat as severe as any of the Islamist or extreme-right groups that it shares the terrorist classification with.

Of course, while no one should object to Palestine Action members facing the full force of the law when their actions stray into criminality, the UK government’s use of anti-terror laws to put a stop to them has wider ramifications for free speech. The Terrorism Act 2000 makes membership of, or support for, any proscribed group a criminal offence that can be punished by up to 14 years in prison. Even wearing a t-shirt or a badge with a banned group’s name can result in a prison sentence of up to six months. Which is how we ended up with the police arresting that 83-year-old priest on Saturday, because she allegedly held up a sign that said: ‘I support Palestine Action.’

The sight of an elderly lady being treated as a potential terror threat, being escorted from a protest to a police van, reveals the absurdity of this approach. All right-thinking people should oppose Palestine Action, both for its deranged Israelophobia and its campaign of wanton vandalism. But we should also oppose the criminalisation of its supporters. Free speech must include the right to defend the indefensible.

Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on X: @FraserMyers.