Authorities to ban Palestine Motion, residence secretary confirms

House Secretary Yvette Cooper has mentioned she is going to proscribe Palestine Motion below anti-terror regulation.

It comes days after activists from the group broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and spray-painted two army planes crimson – an incident Cooper referred to as “disgraceful”.

The transfer successfully manufacturers the group a terrorist organisation and, if handed in Parliament, would make membership of and help of the group unlawful.

Palestine Motion referred to as the federal government’s motion “unhinged”.

Cooper’s announcement got here because the group held a protest in central London, with a whole lot in attendance and 13 arrested as scuffles with police broke out.

Declaring her intention to ban the group, Cooper mentioned Palestine Motion had a “lengthy historical past” of legal injury, and since 2024 “its exercise has elevated in frequency and severity”.

“The UK’s defence enterprise is significant to the nation’s nationwide safety and this authorities won’t tolerate people who put that safety in danger,” she added.

The group targets “monetary corporations, charities, universities and authorities buildings,” Cooper mentioned.

“Its actions meet the edge set out within the statutory exams established below the Terrorism Act 2000.”

She mentioned the measures are particular to Palestine Motion and don’t have an effect on lawful protest teams and others campaigning in regards to the Center East.

“It’s vitally vital that these in search of to protest peacefully, together with pro-Palestinian teams, these opposing the actions of the Israeli authorities, and people demanding adjustments within the UK’s international coverage, can proceed to take action,” Cooper mentioned.

Cooper mentioned a number of acts of significant injury by Palestine Motion since its creation in 2020 had price “hundreds of thousands of kilos”.

The group’s web site states it’s a “direct motion motion” that makes use of “disruptive ways” to focus on those that help Israel’s army marketing campaign.

In 2022, the group broke into Thales defence manufacturing facility in Glasgow, inflicting £1,130,783 in damages utilizing pyrotechnics and smoke bombs.

Cooper additionally referenced two incidents final yr, when Palestine Motion members broke into each the Instro Precision manufacturing facility in Kent and the Bristol HQ of Elbit Programs UK.

Counter-terrorism police are main the investigation into Friday’s incident at Brize Norton.

Armed forces minister Luke Pollard mentioned the break-in was “not solely epically silly, however it was additionally a direct assault on our nationwide safety.”

In a press release on the safety of UK army bases on Monday, Pollard instructed MPs: “I can affirm two RAF Voyager plane had been broken by paint, however there was no additional injury to infrastructure or belongings, nor has there been any affect on deliberate operations from Brize Norton”.

He mentioned an identical incident “must not ever occur once more” and added that “enhanced safety measures throughout the entire of defence have been put in place since Friday”.

In a press release, Palestine Motion mentioned: “The true crime right here will not be crimson paint being sprayed on these conflict planes, however the conflict crimes which were enabled with these planes due to the UK authorities’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.”

“We’re lecturers, nurses, college students and fogeys who participate in actions disrupting the non-public firms who’re arming Israel’s genocide, by spray portray or getting into their manufacturing facility premises. It’s plainly preposterous to rank us with terrorist teams like ISIS, Nationwide Motion and Boko Haram,” it mentioned.

“We’ve got instructed attorneys who’re pursuing all avenues for authorized problem.”

Israel has strongly denied allegations of genocide regarding the continued conflict in Gaza.

Cooper will lay the draft order earlier than Parliament subsequent week.

If handed, the ban would make it a legal offence to belong to or help the group, punishable by as much as 14 years in jail.

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge mentioned the incident was “not vandalism, this was sabotage”.

Talking in Parliament, he referred to as for these accountable to face “penalties” and requested the way it had been allowed to occur.

Former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf instructed the BBC’s Scotcast podcast that Cooper’s motion to ban Palestine Motion was a “shameful abuse of anti-terror laws”.

He mentioned it was an “completely ludicrous overreaction” in an try “to intimidate and in the end silence protestors and pro-Palestinian protesters”.

Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, mentioned the transfer set a “harmful precedent, which governments in future might additional use towards their critics.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves condemned Palestine Motion’s behaviour as “completely unacceptable”.

“To trigger injury to army belongings, but additionally to trigger such injury to privately owned belongings, it’s unacceptable no matter your views are on what’s taking place within the Center East,” she mentioned forward of Cooper’s assertion.

Forward of the house secretary’s announcement, a whole lot of protesters met at Trafalgar Sq. after police banned Palestine Motion from protesting exterior of Parliament.

Organisers made the last-minute venue change after Scotland Yard enforced an exclusion zone throughout a lot of Westminster.

Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley mentioned whereas the power had no authorized energy to cease the protest, they might impose circumstances “robustly”.

Charing Cross, subsequent to Trafalgar Sq., was blocked for a time because the protesters gathered.

Some supporters of the group waved Palestinian flags and carried placards, with different protesters chanting: “We won’t be silenced.”

The protest was required to finish at 15:00 BST, when police moved in to disperse the group.

The Met Police mentioned it made 13 arrests on the protest.

Six of those had been for assaulting an emergency employee, one for a racially aggravated public order offence, 4 for refusing to disperse, and two had been for obstructing a constable within the execution of their responsibility, the Met mentioned.