A new Labour leader must scrap Palestine Action ban

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Once more, Palestine Action are banned. The Court of Appeal has ruled that Yvette Cooper’s initial proscription was, in fact, lawful, and that a previous court case was wrong to rule it unlawful. The case may now go to the Supreme Court, but the ban stands for now. More than 3,000 people have been arrested under it, and more than 700 charged under the Terrorism Act. No case has been heard so far.

The overturning hinged on two primary factors: that Palestine Action “overtly promotes unlawful violence amounting to terrorism”, and that the government has greater remit for decisions relating to security than the courts (i.e., that deciding to label an organisation “terrorist” for national security reasons is not something a court should be able to overturn).

This is a worrying precedent that further centralises power in the hands of the state, and it goes hand in hand with another element of the case: restrictions on the right to protest. Huda Ammori’s initial appeal of the government’s decision had been grounded in this principle, which was the correct argument to make. Palestine Action may choose activities that Workers’ Liberty supporters wouldn’t choose to do themselves, and they do them on political grounds that we can (and do) dispute, but the outcome of this case is a blow to us all. The ability to protest wrongdoing and fight for change in this country has suffered a major blow today.

The ban is also practically unfeasible: months ago, the Met police announced (then later retracted) that they would be unable to enforce the ban. Nothing changed except political pressure on the heads of the police. Officers clearly struggle to deal with the scale and popularity of non-obedience at Defend Our Juries protests, and the thousands awaiting trial have been put through a farcical process thanks to a political decision that even those arresting them and enforcing the law didn’t think made sense. How has today’s Court of Appeal decision changed those facts? It’s hard to say it has.

We have a new prime minister looming on the horizon. Activists must use the upcoming Labour leadership contest to hold candidates to a promise: overturn the proscription and do away with it; write off this sorry period as an authoritarian overhang from the panicking Starmer regime. Any alternative will be a betrayal of basic democratic principles.