The British government’s proscription of Palestine Action (PAG) marks one of the most contentious applications of the Terrorism Act 2000 in recent years. The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has claimed that the group has demonstrated a willingness to use violence, targets Jewish-owned businesses (the implication being out of racial animus), and plots future acts of terrorism.
Yet the government’s own Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) assessment, dated 7 March 2025, fails to substantiate any of these allegations.
Last week more than 500 people, nearly half of them over 60, were arrested in London for holding signs supporting Palestine Action, which was proscribed as a terrorist group in July. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has defended the arrests, citing security assessments and the group’s record of violent actions. But Palestine Action denies being violent, describing its actions against arms manufacturer Elbit Systems as non-violent direct action.
The assessment by JTAC goes to the heart of that difference.
JTAC is a permanent inter-agency body housed within MI5’s headquarters and comprises representatives from MI5, MI6, GCHQ, Defence Intelligence, the Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism Command, the Home Office, and other departments. It has assessed PAG’s activities against statutory terrorism tests.
Its conclusion seems clear: the case for PAG’s proscription rests not on plots to harm people but on the group’s record of “serious damage to property with the aim of progressing its political cause”. It also notes that “the majority of the group’s activity would not be classified as terrorism under Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000.” This raises the question: is Yvette Cooper right in stating it is a violent organisation?
PAG’s manual, the JTAC also concludes, “provides practical advice and advocates for serious property damage”.
The definition applied is Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which uniquely in UK law allows property damage alone, without intent to harm life, to be classed as terrorism. As JTAC acknowledges, “the majority of the group’s activity would not be classified as terrorism”.
In July of this year, United Nations experts warned the UK government not to designate the protest group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000, warning that property damage without intent to kill or injure does not meet international standards for terrorism.
They stressed that proscription would criminalise legitimate political activities, risk disproportionate penalties of up to 14 years in prison, and have a chilling effect on protest and advocacy. The experts called for alleged property damage to be investigated as ordinary crimes, not terrorism, and reminded the UK of its past support for limiting terrorism definitions to acts causing death, serious injury or hostage-taking.
This intervention is not noted by the JTAC. Rather their report describes PAG as a “pro-Palestinian group” seeking to “end complicity with Israeli apartheid” through direct action against entities supplying the Israeli military, most notably Elbit Systems and its UK subsidiaries.
Since its launch in July 2020, PAG has conducted over 385 actions, including paint-spattering offices, occupying factory roofs, and damaging manufacturing equipment. The “Palestine Action Underground Manual”, cited extensively in the report, urges activists to create small autonomous “cells” and lists tactics such as spray-painting, breaking locks, and blocking pipes.
JTAC notes that these methods “have resulted in serious property damage with the aim of progressing its political cause.” As such it meets the definition of terrorism.
Where ministers speak of violent assaults, JTAC documents only one alleged incident – the 6 August 2024 break-in at an Elbit Systems warehouse in Bristol, in which 18 individuals were charged with criminal offences. PAG supporters used sledgehammers and axes, JTAC records, “to cause a significant amount of property damage”.
The matter is sub judice.
What can be reported is that on 6 August 2024, six people were arrested after an incident at the Bristol headquarters of Elbit Systems. Police said a vehicle was driven into the site and two officers, along with a security guard, sustained injuries. The case is listed to be heard at the Old Bailey on 22 August 2025.
In its own summary, JTAC acknowledges that PAG media will ‘highly unlikely’ advocated violence against people.
It also notes that ‘aggressive behaviour’ within the group will not be tolerated.
On other ministerial claims, the assessment is silent. There is no reference, as some media outlets have reported, to PAG receiving Iranian or other foreign funding, nor to attacks on Jewish-owned businesses as such.
While the report cites incidents of damage to Barclays branches and universities, these are framed as targets perceived to be complicit in the Israeli arms trade or “symbolic” of wider pro-Palestinian causes.
The intelligence picture painted is of a decentralised network engaging in civil disobedience at the sharp end of the law. Its membership profile – 300,000 Instagram followers, 220,000 on X – and tactics resemble those of previous UK protest movements that have tested the limits of criminal damage law.
What appears to be the case is that, for proscription to succeed politically, the JTAC have relied on stretching the statutory definition of terrorism to its widest permissible extent. That carries consequences beyond the courtrooms in which PAG members now face trial. In so doing it collapses the distinction between non-violent direct action (albeit costly to property) and acts intended to inflict harm on civilians.
The JTAC report makes it clear: “The majority of direct action by PAG would not be classified as terrorism under the definition af section 1 of TACT 2000, but does often involve criminality.”
Despite this, the Home Office has chosen to treat that as terrorism. In doing so, the government has set a precedent: that protest movements causing serious economic disruption to a sector of the economy can be outlawed under counter-terrorism legislation, even in the absence of threats to life.
As with the suffragettes a century ago, the state’s response to disruptive protest will be judged not only by its effectiveness but by whether it upholds democratic freedoms.
All references to the activities of Palestine Action above are based on information contained in official documents, public statements by ministers, and reports from the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and United Nations experts. To be clear: nothing in this article should be understood as endorsing or encouraging the activities of a proscribed organisation, or as making any judgment on the guilt or innocence of individuals whose cases are before the courts.
But the detail in JTAC’s assessment appears to prove that the government’s public justifications go beyond what its own intelligence says. And that gap between ministerial rhetoric and official analysis is where politics intrudes, and where the debate over the limits of dissent in Britain will now be fought.
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