Palestine Action is malign, but terror status goes too far

Times

20 hours ago

At midnight on Saturday, Palestine Action ­became officially proscribed under the Terrorism Act. In that ignoble status, it joins al-Qaeda, Hamas and Isis. Voicing support for, or being a member of, Palestine Action is now punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Predictably enough, a number of adherents of the anti-Israeli direct action group do not seem to have been chastened. Following a failed last-minute High Court effort to block the group's proscription, dozens of protestors were arrested over the weekend on suspicion of supporting the organisation. They included an 83-year-old priest, as well as others thought to be 'wearing clothing or displaying articles' ­indicating membership of a terrorist organisation.
That Palestine Action is a malign force is ­beyond doubt. Its members include sinister ­ideologues, deeply confused in their geopolitical outlooks and their assessment of the best way to secure their objectives. The group's 'disruptive tactics' involve calculated acts of criminal damage, illegal occupation of premises, and intimidating acts of vandalism. Since its founding in 2020, the group has had a hand in around 500 distinct instances of 'direct action', often targeting firms and property suspected of having links to Israel. The most serious act for which the group claimed credit was when four people were arrested on ­suspicion of causing £7 million of damage to two military transporter aircraft at RAF Brize Norton. It was this that prompted Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to judge that the group had 'crossed the threshold established in the Terrorism Act'.
• Police defend arrest of 83-year-old Palestine Action activist
Yet, however wanton its criminality, it remains a stretch to brand Palestine Action a terror group. Its members are qualitatively different from those of al-Qaeda, and pose a substantially different kind of threat to public order and national security. Their tactics more closely ­resemble those of extremist environmentalist groups like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion than those of ­Islamist terrorists. In recent months, a combination of public ill will, effective prosecution and proportionate sentencing have made it unviable for climate activists to persist with their criminal antics. In March this year, Just Stop Oil ­announced an end to its practices of criminal vandalism, claiming implausibly to have achieved its objectives. In reality, they were prosecuted into submission by legitimate use of the criminal law.
The heavy-handed branding of Palestine Action as terrorists risks seeming absurd when ­bona fide hostile military groupings like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps remain ­unproscribed. The destruction of property that Palestine Action has made its calling card can already be prosecuted.
There are legitimate ­concerns that such measures risk suppressing ­dissent on the part of those politically opposed to the ­government's support of Israeli defence policy. Palestine Action's members may be misguided, but Britain must remain a country in which the right to express unpopular and dissenting political views is not subject to outright prohibition.
The emergence in recent years of activist groups that make criminal forms of destruction and public nuisance their modus operandi does raise challenges for law enforcement. Lord Walney, the government's former independent adviser on ­extremism, has recently mooted an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill which would give police greater power to curb the illegal antics of extremist groups that fall shy of terrorist organisations. These might include powers to block their ability to fundraise, organise on social media, or live-stream acts of criminality.
These lighter-touch measures would be an obviously apt ­response to the level of threat posed. Palestine Action are an antisocial menace to public order; but politicians should not do them the service of taking them as seriously as they take themselves.