UK lawmakers approve ban of Palestinian campaign group

3/7/2025 6:19

British lawmakers voted on

Wednesday to ban pro-Palestinian campaign group Palestine Action

as a terrorist organisation, after its activists broke into a

military base and damaged two planes in protest at what it says

is Britain's support for Israel.



Palestine Action, which describes itself as a direct action

movement that uses disruptive methods, has routinely targeted

companies in Britain with links to Israel, including Israeli

defence firm Elbit Systems, which it has called its

"main target".



Britain's Labour government accused the group of causing

millions of pounds of damage through action at a Thales

factory in 2022, an Elbit site last year and at the

Royal Air Force base in southern England last month - the

trigger for the decision to ban, or proscribe, the group.



Proscription would officially designate Palestine Action as

a terrorist organisation on a par with Islamic State or al Qaeda

under British law, making it a crime to support or belong to the

groups.



Britain's proscription order will reach parliament's upper

chamber, the House of Lords, on Thursday. If approved by

lawmakers there, Palestine Action's ban would become effective

in the following days.



The group, which has called its proscription unjustified and

an "abuse of power," has challenged the decision in court and an

urgent hearing is expected on Friday.



United Nations experts appointed by the U.N. Human Rights

Council have urged Britain to reconsider its move, arguing that

acts of property damage without the intention to endanger life

should not be considered terrorism.



Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Britain's interior minister,

says that violence and criminal damage have no place in

legitimate protest, and that a zero-tolerance approach was

necessary for national security.



On Tuesday, the group said its activists had blocked the

entrance to an Elbit site in Bristol, southwestern England, and

that other members had occupied the rooftop of a subcontracting

firm in Suffolk, eastern England, it said had links to Elbit.



Israel has repeatedly denied committing abuses in its war in

Gaza, which began after Palestinian militant group Hamas

attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.



In addition to Palestine Action, the proscription order

approved by Britain's parliament includes neo-Nazi group Maniacs

Murder Cult and the Russian Imperial Movement, a white

supremacist group which seeks to create a new Russian imperial

state.



The vote on the three groups was taken together, meaning all

three had to be banned or none of them.