The campaigns of Palestine Action have involved disabling the factory in the Wirral that produces components for the F-35 fighter jets used to bomb Gaza, dismantling UAVs at a Runcorn drone factory and occupying facilities owned by Elbit Systems, which produces 85 per cent of the IDF’s land vehicles. In doing so, Palestine Action has drawn attention to the war—and to the mounting death toll—as well as to the UK’s role in the weapons industry that sustains it.

The proscription of Palestine Action means that the group can no longer make such protests, or any protests at all. Criminal laws exist that can and have been brought against these actions. But it is this very course of justice that the proscription aims to impede. In a number of similar cases, activists who have disarmed weapons systems have been acquitted by juries because their actions were aimed at preventing war crimes. Although laws around such a defence have been tightened, juries can still acquit on the basis of jury nullification, where an acquittal is determined to be in the interests of justice as a matter of conscience. In 1996, the Ploughshares Four, a group of women who broke into an aerodrome to vandalise a BAE Hawk aircraft due to be exported to East Timor, were found not guilty of criminal damage. They had argued that they were using reasonable force to prevent BAE Systems from complicity in the East Timor genocide. In 2007, two members of the Fairford Five, a group who broke into RAF Fairford in 2003 to damage equipment used to support B-52 bombers headed for Iraq, were acquitted by a jury on the same basis. In 2022, five Palestine Action activists were acquitted by a jury following a demonstration during which they sprayed red paint on the headquarters of Elbit Systems. Keir Starmer is aware of this legal anomaly: as a human rights barrister, he defended Josh Richards, a member of the Fairford Five who was acquitted when a jury failed to reach a verdict. Such an outcome is exactly what the government is trying to avoid. In taking Palestine Action activists to court on charges of criminal damage, they risk exposing the chasm between government policy and public opinion. It is not terror the government fears, but embarrassment.

Huw Lemmey, “Who’s Afraid of Palestine Action?”