Proscribing Palestine Action: when Labour criminalises conscience

When the Labour government designated Palestine Action a terrorist organisation in yesterday, it crossed a red line, not in paint, but in principle.  A line that separates a flawed democracy from an authoritarian security state.   A line that separates protest from persecution.  A line that, once crossed, makes damn clear who the real criminals are.   This isn’t about violence.  Palestine Action has never engaged in a campaign of violence. They don’t bomb. They don’t shoot.  They don’t threaten civilians or politicians.  What they do is physically disrupt the infrastructure of a war machine in a genocide our Government gaslights us that it isn't part of.  They target weapons factories, arms companies, logistics networks and, most recently, RAF Brize Norton, where UK aircraft have played a direct role in supplying Israel’s campaign in Gaza.  Their offence?  Covering a military transport aircraft in red paint. Red, for the blood of over 50,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since October 2023.  Red, for the babies buried under rubble.  Red, for Britain’s shameful complicity.  This was symbolic, non-violent, high-stakes direct action:  the kind of action that should force a country to look at what it tries so desperately to ignore.   And in response, Labour labelled these activists terrorists. That is not law enforcement. That is repression. That isn't public safety.   That is political revenge. We are through the looking glass.

What Really Happened at Brize Norton

On June 20th 2025, Palestine Action broke into the RAF’s Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire. They targeted a transport refuelling aircraft that had, according to multiple reports, been used to fly weapons and surveillance equipment to Tel Aviv, logistics that fed the Israeli military as it carried out an internationally condemned siege of Rafah.  Activists disabled the aircraft, doused it in red paint, and broadcast their action live. No one was harmed.  No weapons were stolen.  No threats were made. But the symbolism was stark: if the British state facilitates genocide, then its war machine must be held accountable.  Last night, Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper invoked the 2000 Terrorism Act and is moving to proscribe Palestine Action, putting them in the same legal category as al-Qaeda, ISIS and Boko Haram.

This is grotesque.  It’s a mockery of language, of law, and of basic decency. Palestine Action is not a terrorist group in any sense of the word.  It is not a paramilitary organisation.  It is not a threat to the British public.  It is a direct-action network engaged in civil disobedience, no different in kind from the anti-apartheid movement, the suffragettes, or the environmental sabotage cells that shut down coal mines and fracking sites.  You don’t have to agree with them. But if you call them terrorists, you’re either lying, or serving power.

Labour's War on Dissent

Labour’s betrayal is not a surprise, but it’s still an outrage. They rode into office on a wave of disgust at 14 years of Tory cruelty.  People wanted change.  What they got was continuity in a red tie.  Starmer’s government has continued arms exports to Israel.  It has doubled down on the Prevent programme.  It has backed the criminalisation of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).  And now it has taken the extraordinary step of using counter-terror laws against non-violent British citizens.  Let’s be clear: this isn’t just cynical.  It’s authoritarian.  You were warned about the Terrorism Act.  

The Terrorism Act 2000 gives the Home Secretary unchecked power to ban groups whose actions 'seriously interfere with or disrupt an electronic system' a clause so vague you could drive an Elbit drone through it.  And that’s exactly what Cooper has done. She’s used a law designed to combat mass casualty events to crush political dissent.  And all to protect an arms industry dripping in blood.  Because that’s what Palestine Action really threatens: not security, but profits.  They’ve shut down Elbit Systems sites.  They’ve disrupted Israeli arms logistics.  They’ve cost shareholders money.  And now they’ve humiliated the state on its own military turf: exposing the RAF as a logistics partner in genocide.  So what does Labour do?  It doesn’t confront the genocide.  It doesn’t stop the weapons.  It doesn’t investigate the allegations.  It brands the messengers terrorists and sends in the cops.

The Real Violence

Let’s talk about violence.  Violence is a child in Khan Younis torn to pieces by a drone-launched flechette bomb, made by Elbit, flown from RAF Brize Norton, approved by a British export license.  Violence is mass graves outside Nasser Hospital bombed by F35's kept in the air by British made parts.  Violence is aid trucks turned away.  Violence is a state using starvation as a weapon.  And Palestine Action?  They’ve spilled nothing but paint and truth.  They break windows, not bodies.  They occupy rooftops, not refugee camps.  They throw spanners into machines, not phosphorus onto civilians.  Yet somehow they are the fucking threat?No.  The threat is a shitty arsed government so up to it's nuts in supporting war crimes that chooses not to tell the difference between non-violent resistance and political extremism.  A government that believes solidarity is sedition.  A government that calls sabotage of a weapons convoy 'terrorism' but remains silent as Israel bombs refugee tents and hospitals.  The real scum here is our Government.  The real criminals here are in Westminster and the real terrorists are one who sign the arms deals with a pariah state murdering children.

This Is About Empire, Not Security

Palestine Action had pulled back the curtain.  That’s their real crime.   They've embarrassed the Government and showed everyone what it is.  They've exposed the British state as an death pedalling arms dealer with a flag.  They expose Elbit Systems as a merchant of death operating on British soil.  They expose Labour as just another management team for the war economy.  They expose the reality that this country is not neutral, not peace-loving, and not fucking innocent.  Britain is a supplier.  A facilitator.  A profiteer.  The thing is the state can live with marches, it can live with petitions, it can live with editorials and angry tweets, it can live with blogs like this.   What is cannot live with is disruption.  It cannot live with the factories shut down.  It cannot live with the logistics blocked.  It cannot live with a red-painted RAF transport aircraft in every national newspaper, reminding people that our military isn’t just defending the realm, it’s fuelling the massacre.  It hates Palestine Action for shining a light on the  fucking morality free next of vermin that  it is - so Palestine Action had to be crushed.  Not because they were dangerous, but because they were effective and that wasn't paint, it was a bloody nose to our warmongering piece of shit Government.

Labour’s Authoritarian Trajectory

When Keir Starmer took over the Labour leadership in 2020, he promised unity. Instead, he waged a purge.  He expelled socialists, censored Palestine supporters, and crushed internal democracy.  Now, in government, he and Yvette Cooper have moved from controlling the Labour Party to controlling protest itself.  The Brize Norton action was a red line not for justice, but for power.  Labour’s message is clear: if you disrupt British complicity in war crimes, you are the enemy.  Let’s remember: this is a government that didn’t proscribe Tommy Robinson’s mob when they rioted outside Parliament.  It didn’t proscribe Britain First when it marched in Muslim neighbourhoods.  It didn’t proscribe far-right paramilitary 'veteran defence leagues'.  But a group of young anti-genocide activists who chain themselves to gates and throw paint? Off to the terrorist register with them.  It’s cowardice. it's cynical, it’s collusion and it’s class war: because let’s face it: if Palestine Action were a think tank, if they wore suits and launched reports instead of climbing fences, Labour would listen to them. But they’re working-class, radical, unapologetic and so the state crushes them.  Just like it's trying to do to Kneecap.

The Media's Role in Manufacturing Consent

Of course, the press has played its usual disgraceful role. The Times, Daily Mail, GB News, frothing with fear porn about 'extremists', 'vandals', 'anarchists'.  No context. No history.  No mention of the genocide.  Just outrage theatre and recycled press releases from the Home Office.  But it’s not just the right.  The Guardian has barely lifted a finger.  The BBC talks about 'Palestinian casualties' like people fall down the stairs and explode into pieces.  'Militant group daubs RAF aircraft in paint' runs the line.  No mention that the aircraft was part of a supply chain for war crimes. No mention that the ICC has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.  No mention that Britain may be legally complicit in genocide and no mention that our politicians need a well-earned visit to the Hague.  Instead, they parrot the narrative of order.  Stability.  Legitimacy.  It’s the same media class that smeared Corbyn as an antisemite, that platformed Suella Braverman’s culture war poison, and that now stands politely by while the state designates peaceful activists as terrorists.  The Fourth Estate is now a wing of the Home Office.

What Happens Now?

The implications are terrifying.  Proscription under the Terrorism Act means:

• It becomes a criminal offence to be a member of Palestine Action.
• Possessing a banner, a leaflet, even expressing support can get you arrested.
• Social media admins can face charges.
• Journalists can be prosecuted for reporting 'favourably'

This is McCarthyism with better surveillance software.  It’s the criminalisation of solidarity.  It’s Britain’s version of the Patriot Act: but used against paint-throwing anti-racists, not armed militias.  And if they can do it to Palestine Action, they can do it to Just Stop Oil. To rent strikers. To militant trade unionists. To you.  These soulless twats are testing the limits of what the British public will tolerate.  And every inch we concede becomes tomorrow’s battleground.  And this isn't the end of it.  If you proscribe none-violent groups as terrorists, what's to say a future Government that reintroduces the death penalty for terrorism won't engage in stringing up peaceful protestors it considers terrorists?   That's not far fetched. Look what we did to Michael X. 

If you ban peaceful protest and none-violent direct action, if you put people in prison for it, then you radicalise people.  If you call people terrorists and imprison them for clearly none-terror actions then some of them are going to pick up guns and behave like terrorist - if none-violence gets them a prison sentence then violence becomes a viable option.  Have we learned nothing from Northern Ireland.

Resistance Is Not Terrorism

I say it again: Palestine Action are not terrorists.  They’re anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, anti-fascist organisers.  They are brave.  They are disciplined.  They are doing what our politicians and courts have refused to do: stop genocide.  They should be celebrated, not criminalised.  The real terrorists are the ones dropping bombs on children. The real extremists are the ones defending ethnic cleansing. The real threat to British society is a government that calls truth treason and protest terrorism.  This proscription must be resisted, legally, politically, and in the streets.

Final Word: No Justice, No Peace

Labour’s proscription of Palestine Action is not just a betrayal.  It is a turning point.  A clear signal that the machinery of the British state now serves empire, not people.  You can cover it in red rosettes.  You can stick a union jack on it.  You can read your lines about 'balance' and 'security' and 'rule of law':  but the mask has slipped.  This is a government of collaborators.  Of cowards.  Of bloodstained technocrats who criminalise conscience and gaslight a country into complicity.  Palestine Action broke no bones.  They broke no lives.  They broke no laws that should exist in a just society.  What they broke was silence.  And for that, the Labour government branded them terrorists.  History will remember which side they stood on.  And it will remember who stood up.

The world has gone mad. If you enjoyed reading this, please feel free to look at the rest of the blogs on www.TetleysTLDR.com. They're free to view, there's no paywall, they aren't monetised and I won't ask you to buy me a coffee. Also please free to share anything you find of interest, we only get the message out if people are aware of it. Just a leftie, standing in front of another leftie, asking to be read. All the best, Tetley