High Court Predictably Refuses to Delay the Coming into Effect of The Proscription of Palestine Action As A Terrorist Organisation

Large Demonstration Outside the Royal Courts of Injustice Today Declares 

‘We Support Palestine Action’

We Support Palestine Action Demonstration Outside the Royal Courts of Injustice Today 4 July 2025

At midnight tonight the proscription of Palestine Action as a ‘terrorist’ group comes into effect, the High Court having turned down an application to delay its implementation.

This so-called Labour government has driven a nail through our democratic right to protest by proscribing a protest group, Palestine Action as a terrorist group. In the process it has made the term ‘terrorist’ meaningless.

Instead of terrorism being acts of violence against a civilian population, which is what the Israeli state is, any group which interferes with Police State Starmer’s right to support genocide is liable to also be proscribed.

The old saying that ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’ has been proven correct. Most people see the Israeli state as a terrorist state but to the war criminals who head our government, murdering hundreds of thousands of people, executing Red Crescent and humanitarian aid workers, bombing hospitals and murdering journalists is merely collateral damage.

In the House of Lords yesterday peers defeated a ‘regret’ motion from the Green Party’s Baroness Jenny Jones by 144-16 though as in the Commons it was the opponents of Starmer’s police state legislation that had the better arguments.

Peter Hain, who in 1970 organised the Stop the Tour Committee against the proposed tour of the Apartheid Cricket Team and the previous Springbok Rugby Tour, told the Lords that if these powers had been in force then they would have been used against campaigners against Apartheid in South Africa.

Hain also drew attention to the fact that the Suffragettes had been branded extremists and terrorists in their time. They had even planned to plant bombs in Lloyd George’s new house.

It is a mark of the degeneracy of Starmer’s Labour Party  that they could introduce a proscription order whose effect is to defend a genocide in Gaza happening before our eyes. There is no principle that this so-called human rights lawyer is not prepared to break in order to appease the United States and the Israel lobby.

What of Palestine Action?  There was a large demonstration of over a thousand people today outside the Palaces of Injustice in The Strand with their mock gothic architecture. For once the Met didn’t try attacking any demonstrators, at least not while I was there.

Predictably enough the High Court turned down the application to delay the implementation of the legislation although it is due to go to the Court of Appeal. However I don’t hold out much hope that this reactionary court will overturn the lower court’s decision.

What next?  Well Palestine Action held a packed 1,000 strong Zoom meeting tonight under the title of The Plan but there was little evidence of such a plan although I was told that this was because of the presence of police and other spies. The meeting itself lasted less than an hour.

It remains to be seen whether or not there will be deliberate attempts to make the legislation unworkable by simply flouting it or whether Palestine Action will continue its work of attacking Elbit factories but not in the name of Palestine Action. One name that has been proposed is Yvette Cooper, the trollope who, as Home Secretary, brought the order forward.

What is certain is that the proscription of a direct action protest group marks a new low for a government led by an empty suit which has attacked claimants, the disabled, parents with more than two children and protesters. It is laying the basis for Farage’s Reform party at the next election which is why the decision of Zara Sultana to resign from the Labour Party is so welcome.

It is to be hoped that Jeremy Corbyn abandons his usual indecisiveness and hesitation and comes out in support of Sultana’s decision. It is also to be hoped that other left-Labour MPs like John McDonnell follow suit.

What is needed however is a broad based campaign to roll back the ongoing attack on democratic rights, not just by Starmer but the previous Tory government too.  It is no surprise that those who are supporting genocide in Gaza are eager to clamp down on democracy at home.

Tony Greenstein