MPs have voted in favour of legislation to proscribe direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.
Wednesday’s Commons vote saw the Home Secretary’s move to ban the group alongside two other organisations heavily supported with a majority of 359, as MPs voted 385 to 26 in favour of the Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025.
Home Office minister Dan Jarvis had earlier told the Commons “By implementing this measure, we will remove Palestine Action’s veil of legitimacy, tackle its financial support, and degrade its efforts to recruit and radicalise people into committing terrorist activity in its name.
“But we must be under no illusion, Palestine Action is not a legitimate protest group.
“People engaged in lawful protest don’t need weapons. People engaged in lawful protest do not throw smoke bombs and fire pyrotechnics around innocent members of the public.
“And people engaged in lawful protest do not cause millions of pounds of damage to national security infrastructure, including submarines and defence equipment for NATO.
“Proscribing Palestine Action will not impinge on people’s right to protest. Those who wish lawfully to protest or express support for Palestine have always been able to and can continue to do so.”
Jewish communal organisations have called for the government to proscribe the group, after they took part in repeated violent actions outside British factories of Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. Several of the group’s actions also targeted Jewish owned businesses linked to support for Israel.
But in a bad-tempered Commons debate, hard-left and pro-Gaza MPs expressed opposition to the move.
9 Labour MPs, 6 Liberal Democrat MPs, all 4 Green MPs and 1 SDLP MP opposed proscription, alongside 6 Independent MPs including Zarah Sultana, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.
Independent MP for Coventry South Zarah Sultana said the move to proscribe Palestine Action “lumps a nonviolent network of students, nurses, teachers, firefighters and peace campaigners – ordinary people, my constituents and yours – with neo-Nazi militias and mass-casualty cults.”
The anti-Israel MP claimed the group had thrown “red paint not fire on aircraft linked to surveillance flights over Gaza”, adding: “Instead of prosecuting them for criminal damage, which is what normally is done, the Home Secretary (Yvette Cooper) is using the Terrorism Act to proscribe them as a terrorist group.
“This is an unprecedented and dangerous overreach of the state.”
At the end of her speech Sultana claimed: “We are all Palestine Action.”
Several MPs on the Labour benches heckled her saying “no, we’re not.”
The Labour veteran John McDonnell also attempted to raise a point of order, asking if MPs backed the move he would be arrested if he joined a pro-Palestine Action demo outside parliament.
MP Richard Burgon also described the Government’s handling of terrorism legislation as “most regrettable”.
Referring to the decision to proscribe Palestine Action, Mr Burgon told the Commons: “I think it’s most regrettable that the Government has brought one order banning three organisations when it knows that there is a political disagreement on this – this is no way to bring terror legislation.
Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North said: “Surely we should be looking at the issue that Palestine Action are concerned about, and the supply of weapons from this country to Israel, which has made all this possible. If this order goes through today, it will have a chilling effect on protests.”
Labour MP Kim Johnson said: “We should all be able to agree that lumping Palestine Action together with the other two obscure groups to ensure that it is proscribed is a disgraceful manipulation of parliamentary procedure.
“Search in Hansard: neither of the two groups have been mentioned, they are so obscure, this manoeuvre is legally transparent and shows that the Government knows just how shaky proscription is.”
But Dan Jarvis told the Commons: “The public attention it has garnered should not be confused with legitimacy, and nor should a group formed five years ago be conflated with the legitimate campaign for Palestinian rights and statehood which has existed in our country and in this House for more than five decades.
“Let me be clear, the proscription of Palestine Action does not seek to ban protest that supports Palestine. There are many ways in which people can continue to lawfully express their support for Palestine without being a member or a supporter of Palestine Action.”
The motion is expected to be debated and voted on by the House of Lords on Thursday before it becomes law.
