Keir Starmer is hardly famous for his grit. But the proscription of Palestine Action is one issue on which the Prime Minister must hold his nerve.
Nearly 900 supporters of Palestine Action – a banned terrorist group – were arrested last weekend alone
Nearly 900 supporters of Palestine Action – a banned terrorist group – were arrested last weekend alone. The organisation’s supporters – and critics of the proscription – claim that the sheer number of arrests means the current approach isn’t working. It simply isn’t sustainable, they say, to apprehend hundreds of ordinary people for showing support for Palestine Action. They’re wrong: Palestine Action is a dangerous organisation that deserves to have been banned.
This is a group that broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and sprayed two military planes with red paint. It has smashed up factories, vandalised property, attacked police officers, and terrorised people. There is no argument of u turning and unbanning such an organisation.
Yet a rising chorus of campaigners, MPs, academics, and ‘activist lawyers’ are demanding a change of approach.
Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is being told by MPs this is the hill to climb down on. Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, said that many of the protesters holding Palestine Action posters do it because they ‘feel strongly about Palestinian rights or free speech.’ In truth, there are plenty of ways to express support for Palestinians without also supporting a violent proscribed organisation. As for Palestine Action, letting their members go back to their favourite hobbies: vandalising weapons factories, breaking into military bases, and calling it freedom of expression, creates a dangerous precedence.
This is precisely why the proscription must stand. To retreat now would be to send a message that extremism works. That if you are noisy and destructive and cynical enough to wrap your lawbreaking in slogans, you can push the state backwards. It would, in effect, tell every radical group in Britain that the secret to success is simple: commit a crime, get arrested, and then argue that your rights are being trampled on.
Thankfully, for now, the government is standing firm. Security Minster Dan Jarvis has said that Palestine Action “isn’t a legitimate protest group but one with terrorism connections”. This suggests that, in addition to the groups’ actions, the Home Office may be aware of links to terror organisations, or to Iran.
The irony is that Palestine Action’s supporters believe the number of arrests demonstrates the injustice of the proscription. In reality, it proves the opposite. What other group of self-declared ‘peace campaigners’ makes it their mission to rack up criminal records? Most campaigners hand out leaflets; Palestine Action dishes out crowbars and sledgehammers.
If Labour caves on this, it hands the keys of the Home Office to the mob. The proscription will look less like a serious counter-extremism measure, and more like a temporary scolding that can be reversed when the right number of placards are waved outside Westminster.
It is also a test of seriousness for Labour’s much-vaunted “grown-ups back in charge” image. Starmer has spent five years trying to rid his party of the stain of antisemitism. To flinch now, under pressure from exactly the sort of activists who once made Labour unelectable, would be to throw all that effort away.
None of this is to say that proscription should be wielded lightly. It is an extraordinary power, and it must be justified. But the case for banning Palestine Action is not marginal. It is clear. Their goal is not peaceful protest; it is to terrorise businesses and the government into adopting a political stance against Israel. By their own admission, disruption is the method. Violence is the tool. Intimidation is the feature, not the bug.
Labour cannot indulge extremist, racist, violent activism. This is the first real test of the new Home Secretary’s resolve. If Mahmood holds firm, she signals that Britain is serious about the rule of law, serious about protecting the Jewish community, and serious about not letting the loudest mob dictate the nation’s security policy. If she caves, she hands the country’s extremists their greatest victory yet.
Violence dressed up as virtue is still violence. Call it activism if you like, but when the axes and sledgehammers come out, and there’s a political agenda behind it, don’t be surprised if the Terrorism Act does too.
Comments