On Friday evening, BBC News reported that the British government is set to proscribe Palestine Action under terrorism legislation, with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper expected to confirm that the group will be added to the list of banned organisations — effectively designating it as a terrorist group.

The news came only a day after an action in which members of the group entered RAF Brize Norton, Britain’s largest military airbase, and damaged two military aircraft. The planes had reportedly been making daily flights to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, a hub for UK surveillance missions and weapons transfers in support of Israel’s assault on Gaza.

The intervention, described by Palestine Action as an effort to interrupt ‘Britain’s direct participation in the commission of genocide’, marked the latest in a long-running campaign to disrupt the operations of arms manufacturers and halt the supply of British-made weapons to Israel. 

Several UK sites operated by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, have been repeatedly forced to suspend operations. In 2022, following months of sustained disruption, Elbit sold up its Oldham factory. Palestine Action hailed the closure as a major victory in its strategy of ‘direct action until Elbit is out of Britain’.

It is precisely this effectiveness that appears to be driving the government’s response, which threatens to escalate into the most aggressive legal political crackdown in decades. 

Proscribing the group under the Terrorism Act 2000 would carry profound consequences for political expression in Britain. Under the Act, any group deemed ‘concerned in terrorism’ can be proscribed. Once listed, it becomes a criminal offence to belong to the group, support it, fund it, display its symbols or even express public sympathy. These offences carry penalties of up to 14 years in prison.

If enacted, the designation would place Palestine Action — a non-violent group that engages in property damage but has never incited physical harm — in the same legal category as ISIS, al-Qaeda and neo-Nazi gangs.

The most immediate impact will fall on current and former members. Any association, whether through donations, communication or public endorsement, could result in arrest and prosecution. The legislation also grants police expanded powers to conduct surveillance, freeze bank accounts and seize assets.

It is important to note that Palestine Action activists who engage in illegal acts such as trespass or property damage are already subject to arrest and prosecution under existing laws, and many have been. That the government is now seeking to classify the entire organisation as a terrorist group represents a shift from targeting unlawful behaviour to criminalising political association itself.

More troubling still is the broader impact on political expression. Under anti-terror legislation, the state retains sweeping discretion in defining what constitutes ‘support’. Sharing a social media post, attending a protest or wearing a t-shirt containing a political slogan could all be treated as criminal acts. These implications extend far beyond Palestine Action, casting a shadow over the wider pro-Palestine and anti-war movement.

The government has provided no evidence that the group poses a threat to life or engages in violent extremism. Tellingly, Prime Minister Keir Starmer denounced the Brize Norton action only as ‘vandalism’. Even now, it remains unclear what legal basis will be offered for reclassifying such acts as terrorism — government laws are so sweeping that it is only necessary to demonstrate that an organisation threatens ‘extreme damage to property’. 

What is clear, though, is that the move has less to do with public safety than with suppressing dissent and expanding the use of counter-terror laws to silence a politically inconvenient campaign.

In democratic societies, disruptive activity has long been a catalyst for political change. From the suffragettes to the anti-apartheid movement, actions once condemned as extreme have often achieved retrospective vindication. In the case of Palestine Action — whose interventions aim to obstruct the UK’s material support for crimes against humanity — there is a compelling moral and legal justification for their tactics. Indeed, in his former role as a human rights lawyer, Keir Starmer once defended a man who broke into an RAF base and attempted to set fire to military aircraft on the basis that the act was lawful because it aimed to prevent an ‘illegal war’.

The government’s escalation can only be understood in light of the overwhelming public opposition to Israel’s assault on Gaza. Polls show large majorities demanding a ceasefire and an end to arms exports. Confronted with that pressure and the threat of accountability, the government is moving to repress it.

More than an attack on an activist group, the proscription of Palestine Action signals a broader assault on political freedom, driven by Britain’s deepening complicity in atrocities abroad. 

By branding activism as terrorism, the government is collapsing the line between civil disobedience and violent extremism, adopting tactics more often associated with authoritarian regimes. To defend Palestine Action now is to defend the right to challenge power and to preserve the space for political dissent on which democracy depends.