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The UK government’s contentious ban on Palestine Action under anti-terror laws has been ruled unlawful in a landmark legal victory for civil liberties campaigners.
The High Court in London ruled on Friday that ministers acted unlawfully when they proscribed the direct action network as a terrorist organisation last year alongside groups including al-Qaeda and Hizbollah.
“We are satisfied that the decision to proscribe Palestine Action was disproportionate,” a panel of three judges found.
The decision threatens to throw hundreds of criminal prosecutions against Palestine Action supporters into disarray and is a major defeat for Sir Keir Starmer’s government. Ministers pledged to fight the decision in the Court of Appeal.
Despite the ruling, the court said that the group “remains proscribed” until further order of the court “pending the possibility of an appeal”.
The Metropolitan Police said on Friday there would “likely be some confusion among the public as to what happens next”.
It said, “Officers will continue to identify offences where support for Palestine Action is being expressed, but they will focus on gathering evidence of those offences and the people involved to provide opportunities for enforcement at a later date, rather than making arrests at the time,” adding this was “the most proportionate approach we can take”.
Ministers said they had to use anti-terror powers to ban Palestine Action to counter a threat to national security, arguing the group engaged in an “escalatory campaign” of criminal damage and violence. The Home Office’s decision came after alleged damage at RAF Brize Norton, the UK’s largest air base.
Palestine Action supporters warned the ban has had a “chilling impact” on protest rights and freedom of expression over the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack on Israel.
The proscription made it a serious crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison to belong to or invite support for the organisation.
More than 2,780 people have since been arrested for expressing support for the group, according to campaign group Defend Our Juries.
Hundreds have been charged, mostly under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, a lesser offence that carries a maximum of six months in prison, for activities such as holding up signs or wearing T-shirts.
On the continuing cases against people already arrested and charged for expressing support for Palestine Action, the Crown Prosecution Service said: “Should the government decide to appeal any adverse ruling, which has happened, it is a matter for the court whether cases continue or are adjourned in the interim.”
Asked what would happen if further people were arrested before the outcome of the expected government appeal, the CPS said: “The court made clear that the ban remains in place, and as such we’d have to apply the law if the police passed us a file.”
Cultural figures including author Sally Rooney had submitted evidence to the court, which heard the case in November, warning that the ban created legal uncertainty for artists and risked criminalising legitimate political expression.
The challenge was launched by Palestine Action’s co-founder Huda Ammori and she received support in the case from groups including Amnesty International and Liberty.
The government argued that the right to general pro-Palestine protest was unaffected by the proscription. Its lawyers told the court that Palestine Action’s activities passed the statutory threshold for terrorism, in part because serious damage to property met the definition.
But in the judgment on Friday, judges led by Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the King’s Bench Division, found that Ammori’s challenge was successful on two legal grounds.
The first was that the decision to proscribe was a “disproportionate” interference with freedom of expression and protest rights. The second was that the decision, taken by previous home secretary Yvette Cooper and approved by parliament, was not consistent with the government’s own policy on proscription.
The judges said Palestine Action “promotes its political cause through criminality and encouragement of criminality”. They also found that a “very small number of its actions have amounted to terrorist action”.
Even so, the court said the “nature and scale of Palestine Action’s activities” have not “reached the level, scale and persistence” to justify the consequences of proscription.
In response, home secretary Shabana Mahmood said she planned “to fight this judgment in the Court of Appeal”.
“I have the deepest respect for our judiciary,” she said. “Home secretaries must however retain the ability to take action to protect our national security and keep the public safe.”
Palestine Action’s Ammori said: “This is a monumental victory both for our fundamental freedoms here in Britain and in the struggle for freedom for the Palestinian people, striking down a decision that will forever be remembered as one of the most extreme attacks on free speech in recent British history.”
She said it would be “profoundly unjust for the government to try to delay or stop the High Court’s proposed Order quashing this ban while the futures of these thousands of people hang in the balance”.
Additional reporting by Robert Wright