On 2 July 2025, by a vote of 385 to 26, the UK Parliament approved the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000. This unprecedented decision means that it is now a criminal offence, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, to be a member of, express support for, or even (as a lesser offence) to show moral suppor for the direct action network. The government insists this will not infringe the right to protest. But it is hard to see how such a claim can be made in good faith, given the clear assurances – brought to light by research of Hansard (the official report of all Parliamentary debates) by the journalist Madoc Cairns – offered by Labour ministers when the law was first passed a quarter of a century ago.
When the Terrorism Bill was introduced to the Commons in December 1999, the then Home Secretary, Labour MP Jack Straw, was eager to head off fears that the legislation could be used to suppress protest.
“The Bill does not focus on demonstrations,” he told MPs. “I wholly defend people’s right to go in for peaceful protest—indeed, many of my right hon. and hon. Friends and I have been involved in such peaceful protests.”
In response to concerns that the legislation might be used to target activists involved in property damage, Straw was unequivocal: “People supporting one or another of the international causes… will not even remotely come under the Bill.”
That line of defence was echoed across both Houses of Parliament. The government was at pains to distinguish between terrorism and civil disobedience, however disruptive. Clause 1 of the Act defined terrorism as action “designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public,” which involved “serious violence against a person,” “serious damage to property,” or actions that “endanger life.” But, crucially, the threshold was not intended to be low.
As Straw later clarified, the law “does not create a terrorist offence. It sets out the circumstances in which terrorism takes place and defines terrorism; in turn, in limited circumstances, those provisions may trigger the use of the powers set out in the Bill.”
The concern, even in 2000, was that the broad definition, particularly the inclusion of damage to property, might be misused. Conservative MP Douglas Hogg asked whether the legislation could be used against people who break into a mink farm and destroy research cages. “It would be a criminal act,” he acknowledged, “but why should such organisations be classified as ‘terrorist’?”
Straw replied: “Examples of the type given… are easy to invent, but, in practice—we are talking about the threat of serious violence.”
He conceded there was “a fine dividing line” but insisted the test was whether life or public safety was endangered.
Mr McNamara, a Labour backbencher, warned about the use of language. “My right hon. Friend has now introduced a new word—‘heinous’. Is that to be the equivalent of ‘serious’? What is heinous? Is it something that involves a real threat to life?”
The government’s rhetorical response focused again and again on mass-casualty events. Lord Bassam in the Lords defended the Bill by referring to “mass murderers” and attacks “designed to intimidate the public,” insisting that it would only apply to protest actions “where terrorists were clearly reckless as to whether death or serious injury might be caused.”
That is not the standard now being applied to Palestine Action. That group’s activities include trespassing, daubing red paint, climbing on roofs, and vandalising sites linked to Elbit Systems, the Israeli arms firm. According to the Home Office, it also used smoke bombs and fire extinguishers, and caused “millions of pounds worth of damage” to security infrastructure. But at no point has the group caused injury or death, nor has it targeted civilians. Its stated aim is to disrupt Britain’s complicity in the arming of Israel during its ongoing operations in Gaza. In 2000, such actions would have been deemed criminal, perhaps even dangerous. But terrorism?
Ministers insisted otherwise.
In fact, the entire case for the legislation in 1999-2000 rested on the need to prevent lethal, indiscriminate violence. Straw told the House that the Bill was a response to the threat of “heinous crime—heinous because terrorism seeks to destroy not only lives, but the foundation of our society.” The example he returned to repeatedly was the Old Bailey bombing of 1973. “I have witnessed only one terrorist act in this country,” he said. “If people are killed or injured, the fact that the bombs, the shrapnel and the glass carry a label marked ‘Animal rights’ or the name of some foreign country is immaterial to those who suffer.”
The concern that protest and terrorism would be conflated was also addressed directly in the Lords. “The Government have made it absolutely clear,” the official record states, “that the new definition will not catch the vast majority of protest groups which exist in this country today.” The clause, it said, “is not intended to threaten the right to demonstrate peacefully… Nor is the Bill designed to target or criminalise groups or individuals established to lobby in support of particular causes, be they animal rights, environmental issues, human rights or whatever.” Indeed, the government said, “We would not seek to introduce a Bill which we believed would threaten the right of peaceful protest.”
Lord Desai added a sharp reminder of the moral ambiguity involved in defining terrorism. “My Lords, I have a confession to make,” he told peers. “I spent my morning with a terrorist… It was Nelson Mandela. Let us make no mistake about it: Nelson Mandela was about to engage in destroying a state with which we have friendly relations.”
Now, 25 years later, those assurances are in ruins. A non-violent, if radical, protest group has been placed on the same statutory list as the Islamic State. The vote in Parliament has made it an offence to support an organisation that, while disruptive and unlawful, has not endangered life, and whose campaign—however one judges its methods—falls within the long British tradition of direct action against morally contested industries.
To justify this, the minister responsible, Dan Jarvis, told MPs: “People engaged in lawful protests do not throw smoke bombs and fire pyrotechnics… [They] do not cause millions of pounds of damage to national security infrastructure.” But legality was never the test. Prosecution for criminal damage already exists—and has been used. What has changed is the government’s interpretation of terrorism. The shift is not legal; it is political.
Even the optics of the vote raised eyebrows. The proscription of Palestine Action was bundled with bans on two white supremacist groups: the Russia Imperial Movement and the Maniacs Murder Cult. Critics argue this was a political ploy to ensure support from MPs reluctant to vote against the measure. The result, as the independent MP Zarah Sultana put it, is that “a non-violent network of students, nurses, teachers, firefighters and peace campaigners… [is now] lumped with neo-Nazi militias and mass-casualty cults.”
Human Rights Watch called the move “a grave abuse of state power.” The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers and the Network for Police Monitoring have warned that the decision “conflates protest with terrorism,” and UN experts have reiterated that protest actions involving property damage—but not intended to kill or injure—“should not be treated as terrorism.”
The government, of course, insists that the public’s right to protest remains intact. But the statutory consequences of proscription are sweeping. Anyone found to express support for Palestine Action, to organise under its name, or to fundraise on its behalf, risks prison. That is not a narrow sanction. It is a deterrent to speech, to protest, and to solidarity.
And it breaks a promise—made in Parliament, in public, and on the record. “No such thing will ever happen,” said Mike Gapes, responding to those who warned that the Terrorism Act could one day be used against protestors.
It just did.
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