The state versus dissent

TetleysTLDR: The Summary 

The Judicial Review against the government’s proscription of Palestine Action exposes the authoritarian creep now rotting Britain from the inside out. PA, a direct-action group targeting Elbit weapons factories, was branded a 'terrorist organisation' in July, making membership or even public support punishable with fourteen years in prison. As The Guardian, Al-Jazeera, and Reuters all reported, the ban followed disruptive but non-violent civil resistance: property damage, blockades, rooftop occupations, not terrorism by any sane definition.  Huda Ammori’s Judicial Review argues the proscription violated freedoms of speech and assembly, breached natural justice, and was a wildly disproportionate abuse of anti-terror law.  Liberty and Amnesty agree. The government, panicking, even swapped out the judge days before the hearing, a move legal observers called 'deeply concerning'.  If the state wins, disruptive protest becomes terrorism. If PA wins, Britain might retain a sliver of democracy. Everything hangs in the balance.

THE STATE VERSUS DISSENT: 

HOW THE JUDICIAL REVIEW OF PALESTINE ACTION EXPOSES BRITAIN’S TERRIFYING NEW AUTHORITARIANISM

TetleysTLDR: The long bit

There comes a moment in every decaying democracy when the government stops pretending. When the state, stripped of legitimacy and brazen in power, stops merely managing dissent and starts criminalising it.  That moment, in Britain, arrived the day the Home Secretary proscribed Palestine Action.  According to The Guardian, the ban which was pushed through in July, under the Terrorism Act 2000, meant that membership or even vocal support for PA became punishable with up to fourteen years in prison (Guardian, 17 Oct).  Fourteen years.  More than you’d get for assaulting someone.  More than some offenders get for killing someone.  Fourteen years for supporting a direct-action campaign against British complicity in the slaughter of Palestinian civilians.  If this already sounds like the behaviour of a government that’s lost its mind, buckle up: that was merely the opening act because now the whole thing is blowing up in court, and what’s being dragged into the light is nothing less than the British state’s systematic attempt to redefine political protest as terrorism.  And the Judicial Review of the proscription, brought by PA co-founder Huda Ammori, has become a battle not just over one organisation, but over whether any meaningful dissent can survive in the Britain that Westminster is busy constructing.  As Al-Jazeera reported when the case opened on Tuesday, the stakes could not be higher: the court is being asked to decide whether a government can simply declare a civil-resistance movement ‘terrorist’ because it embarrasses its arms-dealing friends (Al-Jazeera, 26 Nov).  The government is doing everything it can to ensure the answer is ‘yes’.  This isn’t just an attack on Palestine Action. It’s an attack on democracy itself.

PART I: HOW BRITAIN GOT HERE: BY LOBBING THE WORD ‘TERRORISM’ AT ANYONE WHO INCONVENIENCES POWER

Let’s start with what PA actually did.  Palestine Action’s ‘crime’ the one so severe the Home Office now considers it equivalent to plotting bomb attacks was a campaign of direct action against Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems: rooftop occupations, paint-throwing, property damage and a widely reported break-in at RAF Brize Norton which saw activists damage a military aircraft involved in the war on Gaza.  You know: the sort of actions that have formed part of civil-resistance movements for decades.  More radical tactics were used by the Suffragettes, the anti-apartheid movement, environmental groups, anti-nuclear campaigners, and pretty much every movement that ever challenged state power in Britain.  When Reuters covered the start of the Judicial Review, they summarised the state’s position with chilling clarity: that PA’s ‘sustained campaign of criminal damage’ justified the use of anti-terror law (Reuters, 26 Nov).  In other words: property damage = terrorism.  This is the Rubicon the government is marching us over.  A world where smashing a window at a factory making drones that kill children carries the same legal weight as carrying out a bombing or political assassination.  The Home Office didn’t consult PA or civil-rights groups or even parliament in any meaningful way.  According to the press summary later published by the judiciary, the decision was made without engaging with central human-rights considerations, including Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Judiciary.uk press summary, 17 Oct).  In plain English: they couldn’t be bothered even pretending to follow the rules but the authoritarian rot runs far deeper than that because when Ammori took the government to court, the Home Office immediately tried to avoid scrutiny by arguing she should have used the internal ‘deproscription’ process instead: a process which, as The Guardian explained, takes place behind closed doors with minimal transparency and which the state controls from top to bottom (Guardian, 17 Oct).  The Court of Appeal told them to get stuffed.  Not only did it allow the Judicial Review to proceed but it expanded the grounds, ruling that Ammori could challenge whether the Home Secretary followed her own policy, and whether the decision was proportionate in a democratic society (GCN Chambers, Court of Appeal report).  This, unsurprisingly, did not please the Home Office and that brings us to the first of several sinister turns in the story.

PART II: THE JUDGE WHO APPROVED THE CASE WAS REMOVED AND IF YOU’RE NOT WORRIED, YOU’RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION

Here’s the sort of thing that shouldn’t happen in a functioning democracy: the judge who granted permission for the Judicial Review, Mr Justice Chamberlain, was removed from the case immediately before the hearing.  As The Guardian reported on 25 November, Chamberlain was replaced overnight with a three-judge panel, under circumstances described by legal observers as ‘deeply concerning’ (Guardian, 25 Nov). 5Pillars went further, reporting that lawyers and campaigners were asking how and why this switch was made, and whether it reflected pressure from the state apparatus desperate to protect its proscription from serious judicial scrutiny (5PillarsUK, 26 Nov).  This is the kind of thing you expect in authoritarian regimes: judges mysteriously rotated out when they become too much of a nuisance but this is Britain 2025: a country where dissent now seems to be treated as a security threat, and where the judiciary is increasingly expected to ‘play ball’.  Liberty and Amnesty International had already intervened in the case, arguing that the proscription was a grossly disproportionate abuse of anti-terror powers (Liberty press release; Amnesty UK statement). Their submissions warned that the government’s definition of terrorism was expanding beyond all internationally accepted norms, creating a world where civil disobedience itself could be reclassified as extremist and the closer the hearing got, the more it became clear: the government is terrified of this case.  Not because Palestine Action scares them, but because a court ruling against the proscription would blow a hole in their entire project of criminalising protest.  This is why the state is scrambling.  This is why judges vanish.  This is why the government is throwing everything at the wall because if Palestine Action wins, the precedent could make it harder for the state to proscribe the next protest movement: Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, arms-trade blockaders, anti-monarchy activists, striking workers, anti-fascists, trade unions, pensioners, people like those that the Post Office fitted up.  Anyone in fact who becomes inconvenient.

PART III: WHAT’S ACTUALLY BEING ARGUED IN COURT AND WHY IT MATTERS FOR EVERYONE WHO VALUES FREEDOM

Let’s cut through the noise and look at what the Judicial Review is actually about:

1. Whether the government’s ban violated freedom of expression (ECHR Article 10).

2. Whether it violated freedom of association and assembly (Article 11).

3. Whether the Home Secretary failed to consult, breaching natural justice.

4. Whether she followed her own policy.

5. Whether the decision was rational or proportionate.

These aren’t technicalities. They go to the heart of democratic society. As Novara Media noted, the court is being asked to decide whether direct action even militant, property-damaging direct action can be treated as terrorism simply because it embarrasses the government and disrupts the business interests of its corporate allies (Novara Media, 20 Nov).  And that’s exactly what this ban is: a protection racket for the arms industry, wrapped in the language of national security because nobody seriously believes Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation.  No one. Not even the government’s own lawyers, who have largely relied not on arguments of imminent threat but on the ‘sustained’ nature of PA’s actions and the ‘serious economic impact’ on the companies targeted.  Economic impact?  Yes. That’s what the Home Office has effectively argued.  

• Smash a window at an Elbit factory: terrorism.
• Interrupt British complicity in bombing children: terrorism.
• Challenge state violence: terrorism.

But if Israel bombs a refugee camp?  That’s ‘self-defence’.  And if Britain sells Israel the weapons it uses to do this?  That’s ‘defence export licensing’.  If the hypocrisy weren’t so grotesque it would almost be funny.

PART IV: THE STAKES, WHAT HAPPENS IF THE PROSCRIPTION IS OVERTURNED

If Ammori wins, the proscription collapses.  PA is no longer a terrorist organisation.  Anyone arrested solely under the ban becomes the victim of unlawful detention.  Ongoing trials may be halted.  Convictions might be challenged.  And the Home Office? the same department that used anti-terror powers against refugees, protesters, journalists and people waving Palestinian flags would suffer a politically devastating loss.  This is why, as Al-Jazeera put it, the Judicial Review has become a referendum on the government’s ever-expanding definition of terrorism (Al-Jazeera, 17 Oct).  But the outcome isn’t just legal, it’s political.  It’s ideological.  If the proscription falls, it sets a limit to the creeping authoritarianism of the British state. It says: protest is not terrorism. Dissent is not extremism. Direct action is not a threat to national security and that is precisely the message the government doesn’t want anyone hearing.

PART V: BUT WHAT IF PA LOSES?

Let’s be blunt: if the state wins, we all lose.  If the court upholds the proscription, the consequences are catastrophic because then the state will have a judicially-sanctioned precedent confirming that property damage done for political reasons = terrorism.  It won’t stop at Palestine Action:

• Climate activists who shut down oil terminals? Terrorists.
• Trade unionists who occupy a depot? Terrorists.
• Students who blockade an arms-industry recruitment fair? Terrorists.
• Anti-monarchy protesters who disrupt a coronation event? Terrorists.
• Workers defending their jobs? Terrorists.

And do not delude yourself that the British state would hesitate for even five seconds before using this against left-wing movements.  We all saw how quickly police invoked anti-terror laws against peaceful pro-Palestine marchers last year. We saw how ministers labelled climate activists as ‘extremists’ and ‘domestic threats’ on morning TV.  Give them an inch and they’ll take your right to protest.

PART VI: WHAT THIS CASE REALLY REVEALS, A GOVERNMENT TERRIFIED OF ITS OWN PEOPLE

Strip away the legal arguments and this case lays bare a far deeper truth: the British state is scared.  Terrified.  Panicking about the surge in popular solidarity with Palestine.  Panicking about the public’s rejection of the arms industry.  Panicking about a population that increasingly sees through the security-state mythology used to justify endless expansion of policing, surveillance, and criminalisation.  Panicking about the light this shines into the Israeli money that both major parties are awash with.  A government confident in its moral legitimacy does not proscribe protest groups.  A government confident in its democratic mandate does not threaten activists with fourteen years in prison for speaking.  A government confident in its institutions does not rip judges off cases at the last minute.  A government confident in the righteousness of its foreign policy does not need to criminalise dissent.  Only a government rotting from the inside behaves like this.

PART VII: WHY THE STATE IS SO SCARED OF PALESTINE ACTION

Palestine Action’s real threat is symbolic. It reveals in public, unavoidable, visceral form  the truth Britain desperately wants to hide:  That this country is an arms-dealing accomplice to apartheid and mass killing.  Every rooftop occupation says it.

Every red-paint-splattered factory says it.

Every blockaded weapons shipment says it.

Every smashed window says it.  Britain is up to its neck in blood and that’s why PA had to be crushed not just with policing, not just with charges, but with the nuclear option: proscription.  Not because PA is dangerous but because PA exposes that Britain is.

PART VIII: WHERE THE JUDICIAL REVIEW MIGHT LAND — AND WHY THE ESTABLISHMENT IS SWEATING

Legal experts aren’t sure how the case will go. Some believe the court, especially a three-judge panel less exposed to political pressure, may be reluctant to endorse such a sweeping blow to civil liberties.  Others fear that the judiciary, increasingly timid in the face of state power, might defer to the Home Secretary’s ‘national security’ framing but even Reuters noted that the court was likely to struggle with the government’s position, given that PA’s actions were targeted at property rather than people (Reuters, 26 Nov). And Liberty has repeatedly argued that if the court does endorse this definition of terrorism, the ruling will become an open licence for governments to proscribe almost any disruptive protest movement.  Britain would cross a threshold we may never return from.

PART IX: THE TRUTH WE HAVE TO FACE — THIS DIDN’T START WITH PA, AND IT WON’T END HERE

The proscription of Palestine Action is not an aberration.  It’s the culmination of two decades of expanding anti-terror laws, three decades of privatised policing and four decades of governments treating dissent as a disease to be cured rather than a democratic right to be protected.  It is the natural endpoint of a British political class that sees the public as a threat rather than a constituency.  It is the latest expression of a security state that having run out of foreign enemies to justify its budget has begun turning inward and unless the courts stop it now, it will only accelerate.

THIS ISN’T JUST ABOUT PALESTINE ACTION, IT’S ABOUT WHETHER BRITAIN REMAINS A DEMOCRACY

Let’s not mince words: the proscription of Palestine Action is a disgrace.  A democratic fraud.  A weaponisation of anti-terror law to shield the British state from accountability.  A warning shot aimed at every movement that dares to fight for justice.  As George Monbiot might say: the criminalisation of dissent is not a sign of strength, it’s the shriek of a panicking elite.  When a state criminalises protest, it’s not protesters we should fear it’s the state.  If Ammori wins her Judicial Review, it will be a small victory for civil liberties in a country that has abandoned most of them.  If she loses, Britain will have taken another step towards a future where every protester is a suspect, every campaigner is an extremist, and every challenge to power is branded as terrorism and you don’t need to be a political analyst to see who benefits from that.  

It isn’t democracy.

It isn’t justice.

It certainly isn’t the British public.  It’s the same old class of public-school pricks, corporate lobbyists and state apparatchiks who’ve been selling this country off for decades and now want to silence anyone who dares to call them what they are.  And on that note: what they are is exactly what Palestine Action exposed a government of slime-soaked cowards running a well funded and back-handed protection racket for the war machine.  If that’s who gets to define terrorism now, then Britain is in far deeper trouble than any of us want to admit.

Democracy is a fragile old thing, held together not by grand speeches or flag-waving pageantry but by a simple, unwritten compact: those in power govern for the people who put them there, and they do so within the bounds of the rule of law. The moment that compact fractures, when ministers start serving donors instead of citizens, when the courts are treated as an inconvenience, when accountability becomes optional, the entire edifice begins to wobble. Crucial to stopping that collapse is a judiciary that remembers its role: to uphold the separation of powers, not to become the Government’s pet legal arm, rubber-stamping whatever wheeze some special adviser scribbled on the back of a napkin.  When judges start bending to political pressure instead of defending the law, the very foundation of democratic oversight crumbles. Trust drains away, participation shrivels, and the space where public service should be is quickly filled with cynicism, grift, and the sort of venal opportunists who mistake a mandate for a blank cheque.  Once that rot sets in, clawing democracy back from the brink becomes a bloody hard fight.

Politicians would do well to remember that they govern by consent, not divine right or some imagined personal brilliance. Their authority is lent to them, temporarily, by millions of ordinary people who expect decency, competence, and a shred of humility in return. The moment they forget that and treat the public as a nuisance, Parliament as a stage set and democracy as a mere technicality: they forfeit the very legitimacy they rely on.  Power without consent is nothing more than a grubby exercise in domination, the preserve of bullies and chancers who think a majority at the ballot box entitles them to ride roughshod over everyone else. A wise politician remembers the fragility of that consent; a foolish one discovers its limits the hard way.

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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