D-Day for PA
TetleysTLDR: The summary
Labour’s reckless 2025 proscription of Palestine Action, a non-violent direct-action group whose most 'extreme' act was spray-painting a RAF aircraft linked to Israel’s war machine finally faces real scrutiny at the Court of Appeal. The government claimed terrorism where none existed: no violence, no threat, no plot, just people with bolt-cutters exposing Britain’s complicity in Israeli atrocities. Backed by Defend Our Juries and a volunteer army of radical lawyers, PA has forced the state into court and the Home Office has nothing but political fear and lobbyist pressure to stand on. If the judges strike down the proscription, Labour will be humiliated, compensation claims will follow, the Terrorism Act will face overdue scrutiny and PA’s activists will be vindicated. Whatever the outcome, the government’s authoritarian stitch-up has been exposed and the people they tried to crush are now the ones holding them to account.
TetleysTLDR: The long bit
This week, in a three day hearing this political farce reaches its breaking point. At the Court of Appeal, one of the most audacious abuses of counter-terror law in modern British history will finally face proper judicial scrutiny. Labour’s rushed, panicked and utterly indefensible proscription of Palestine Action (PA) is being challenged head-on, not by a corporate legal machine, not by a well-funded NGO but by the very people the government tried to crush.
It is the members of Palestine Action themselves, supported by Defend Our Juries, working alongside barristers, solicitors, academics and human rights advocates giving their time pro bono, who have forced this showdown. Ordinary people, many of them pensioners, activists with long peace-movement histories and those with nothing to gain but justice are dragging the government before the Court of Appeal. It is the state, not the activists that stands accused and the government knows it is likely to lose.
Judgment day for a political stitch-Up: Palestine Action, Defend Our Juries and the appeal that should shatter the Government’s abusive proscription
Why this matters
When Labour proscribed Palestine Action in June 2025, a move widely understood to have been triggered by PA’s break-in at RAF Brize Norton and the spray painting of an aircraft linked to arms supplies to Israel, it was a political move dressed up as national security. There was no violence and no intent for violence.
- No plots.
- No weapons.
- No civilian threat.
- No clandestine cells.
- No campaign of intimidation.
And there was absolutely no evidence that PA were ‘concerned in terrorism’ in any way contemplated by the Terrorism Act 2000. Yet Labour pulled the terror lever anyway. The consequences were immediate and catastrophic: thousands of activists were arrested, searched, interrogated under terror powers and smeared across the press. Many were elderly. Several were long-standing peace campaigners with decades of lawful activism behind them and all were denied the due-process standards that supposedly distinguish Britain from the authoritarian regimes it pretends to oppose. That’s why today and this case is so important. It’s not just a legal battle: it’s a reckoning.
Defend Our Juries and PA: a grassroots lawful rebellion
The government assumed the activists would crumble. They assumed pensioners would accept the smear. They assumed volunteer networks couldn’t mount a serious legal challenge. They assumed wrong. Defend Our Juries (DOJ), the campaign defending the right of jurors to exercise conscience and resisting the state’s increasing attempts to restrict protest defendants, stepped in immediately. DOJ helped coordinate legal observers, public briefings, rights education and pressure on the legal establishment. They ensured no activist was left isolated.
At the same time, Palestine Action members themselves, many representing the backbone of Britain’s direct-action tradition, mobilised a network of pro bono barristers and solicitors: people disgusted by the blatant misuse of terror law and willing to donate their skills to expose it. Some are seasoned civil-liberties specialists, others are young lawyers who refuse to spend their careers drafting NDAs for arms companies. This coalition: DOJ, PA, rights groups, legal academics, radical lawyers and ordinary community members is what drags the Home Office to court tomorrow. Not a corporate lobby.
Not an NGO with a comms department.
But the people the government tried to crush. And they are ready.
The Government’s case is built on sand
The Terrorism Act’s bar for proscription is high, and intentionally so. Proscription is one of the most extreme powers the British state possesses. It criminalises membership, association, fundraising, even possession of literature. It destroys lives, careers, families, health. It is meant to be reserved for genuine extremist groups who use violence to coerce the public or state. The Home Secretary must show:
- The organisation is 'concerned in terrorism'.
- Proscription is necessary.
- Proscription is proportionate.
- The decision respects the UK’s commitments to political rights, free expression and the rule of law.
The Home Office cannot show any of this. PA’s Brize Norton action was morally charged sabotage, the same tradition as the countless other direct-action groups from the chartists, to the suffragettes, Stonewall and the Greenham Common Women who damaged property to stop greater harms. The courts have repeatedly affirmed that political property damage is not terrorism unless accompanied by a threat to human life. Labour’s case hinges on pretending that non-violent activists armed with bolt cutters are equivalent to paramilitary actors. It is legally absurd, intellectually embarrassing and morally bankrupt. The Court of Appeal knows this and that is why the government will face a judicial panel deeply sceptical of being used as a political shield for ministers terrified of upsetting arms manufacturers and lobbyists.
Signs in London showing support for the proscribed group and calling out the Government's complicity
Judges don’t like being made fools of
The appellate court is not the House of Commons. It cannot be spun. It cannot be manipulated with soundbites. It cannot be sweet-talked with focus-grouped slogans about ‘extremism’. Judges guarantee future precedent and the precedent Labour is pushing would allow any government to categorise any disruptive protest movement as terrorism. Today it’s Palestine Action. Tomorrow: Just Stop Oil. The next day, Extinction Rebellion. The next day: striking doctors. After that: a choir of pensioners blocking a road in Clapham while singing ‘We Shall Overcome’. If the Court of Appeal were to affirm this proscription, it would rewrite the boundaries of the Terrorism Act beyond recognition and the judiciary does not react kindly to governments who treat foundational legislation like a PR opportunity. Expect the judges to ask the Home Office:
- Where is the evidence of terrorism?
- What is the nature of the alleged threat?
- How was proportionality assessed?
- Why was proscription chosen over existing criminal law?
- What statutory purpose is served by labelling pensioners ‘terrorists’?
They will not like the answers.
On the very day this Labour government swaggered into Parliament draped in sashes like some Poundland suffragette re-enactment society, it proscribed Palestine Action. The suffragettes smashed windows, torched buildings, vandalised property, disrupted government business, bombed Government Ministers houses and were proudly militant. By today’s standards, they’d be labelled ‘extremists’ and slapped on the same proscription list by the very MPs now play-acting as their heirs. It’s grotesque hypocrisy: a government that criminalises non-violent activists for splashing paint on death-merchants’ buildings, while simultaneously cosplaying the women who would’ve been dragged off under their own Terrorism Act for doing infinitely more. It’s not solidarity: it’s cynical theatre from a bunch of self-awareness free charlatans who've forgotten why they were sent to Parliament by their constituents.
Behold an 83 year old terrorist! The Metropolitan Police said that "There is no age limit for law breakers". What they really meant was they are most comfortable targeting the elderly and vulnerable first when eagerly enforcing bad laws. This whole sorry episode has not covered the Met in glory.
The human cost: pensioners punished for their conscience
The government may lose this case, but the people they targeted have already paid heavily.
1. Many were denied due process
Terror arrests come with exceptional powers. Several activists, again, mostly older people were refused access to solicitors, had belongings seized without justification and were interrogated under conditions designed for high-risk suspects. Under normal protest-related charges, none of this would have happened.
2. Psychological trauma
Being labeled a terror suspect is harrowing at any age. One can only imagine the impact on 70 and 80-year-old campaigners whose worst previous brush with the law was handing out CND leaflets in the rain. Sleeplessness, anxiety, hyper-vigilance and feelings of being watched have been widely reported.
3. Financial distress
Asset freezes, disrupted pensions, cancelled bank cards and seized devices have tipped some into temporary debt. The state will not rush to compensate them even after losing.
4. Reputational damage
Neighbours gossip. Employers panic. Communities misunderstand. An accusation of terrorism sticks long after it collapses like a stain you can’t quite scrub from the carpet.
5. Health deterioration
Stress is brutal, especially in older bodies. Missed medical appointments, police bail that interfered with care routines and the relentless uncertainty of looming charges have all taken a toll. This is what our Government did. This is what the proscription unleashed. This is what this appeal seeks to dismantle.
If the Government loses: and they most likely will, the fallout will be enormous
A successful appeal tomorrow won’t simply quash the proscription. It will explode politically.
1. Labour will be humiliated
They weaponised anti-terror powers to silence a movement exposing Britain’s complicity in Israeli war crimes and they got caught. They will be mocked, criticised, condemned and forced into damage limitation.
2. Compensation claims will follow
Once the legal basis for the arrests collapses, the activists will have grounds to sue. And they will because DOJ and PA have the legal networks ready.
3. The Terrorism Act will finally face scrutiny
Parliament will be forced to confront how easily the Act was misused. Civil liberties groups who have warned about this from the outset will have a field day. Media outlets will ask awkward questions about who pushed the proscription and why.
4. Palestine Action will be vindicated
A court ruling in PA’s favour will be a historic moment for the direct-action tradition. It will validate activists who understand that non-violent disruption is not terrorism and must never be treated as such.
5. Labour’s moral authority will evaporate
A party already accused of enabling genocide, privatising the NHS by stealth and cosying up to landlords will find itself accused of something far worse: criminalising conscience. Their complicity in a genocide will be put under a spotlight. Quite rightly an ex Reform UK Ltd regional leader was put in prison for ten years this week for accepting bribes from Russia. The spotlight will now be turned on all the Israeli lobby money that finds its way into the coffers of our political parties and MPs back pockets. That isn't going to be pretty.
RAF Flights to Israel that allegedly resulted in the PA action at RAF Brize Norton. Our Government saw that this showed them up for what they are and acted like petulant children who'd had one of their toys taken away. And they laughably call themselves the adults in the room.
This case is a test, but not for PA
The people on trial tomorrow are not the activists, not DOJ, not PA members and not the pensioners arrested. The people on trial are the government. A government that panicked.
- A government that smeared.
- A government that abused counter-terror power.
- A government that wanted to silence Palestinian solidarity by making an example of elderly peace activists.
- A government now facing the consequences of its own piss-poor authoritarian instincts.
Whatever the judgment, the activists have already exposed the truth
Even if Labour attempts some procedural dodge, even if they try to delay, defer, or distract - one fact will remain: The activists forced them to answer for it and their complicity that they were wanting to keep quiet is out in the glaring sunlight. This is thanks to ordinary people recognising that bad law must be challenged. People like
- Defend Our Juries organisers,
- Palestine Action members,
- pro bono lawyers,
- radical legal scholars,
- community supporters, and
- elderly campaigners with nothing but determination left to lose.
This is people-power in its most direct legal form.
And if, as expected, the proscription is struck down?
Then the whole rotten edifice collapses. The pensioners walk free. PA is vindicated. Defend Our Juries is vindicated and the government, well the Government is shown up as the cowardly, authoritarian embarrassment it is.
And the Terrorism Act will never again carry the same aura of unquestionable authority. Today at the Court of Appeal they will try to defend the indefensible, and the judges may well hand them the judicial kicking they richly deserve, thus leaving Labour holding its own authoritarian messy shit storm. They will be shown for what they are: Genocide supporting piece of shit snake-oil salesman who set fire to the Constitution to look ‘strong’.
This is what happens when bad law is challenged: The lawyers step forward. Defend Our Juries refused to blink and today in court, the government finally has to answer for what it did.
If they possessed even a flicker of moral instinct, the Government would hang their heads, resign en masse, and answer for their dereliction of public duty. But of course they won’t, and they know full well the next reckoning is likely to come from the ICJ, case by case. And they’ve more than earned every bit of it.
Tetley is a left of centre writer and retired musician based in the UK. A former member of the Labour Party, he writes political analysis exposing Britain’s authoritarian drift, the criminalisation of protest, and the erosion of civil liberties.
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