SACC Statement on the proposed ban on Palestine Action
26 June 2025 - SACC
This statement sets out SACC's position on the date the statement was issued (26 June 2025) - see the note at the end of statement.
SACC is appalled at the UK Government's announcement on Monday that it intends to add Palestine Action to its list of terrorist organisations banned under the Terrorism Act 2000. Palestine Action is a widely respected part of the UK's multi-faceted and organisationally diverse Palestine solidarity movement.
We stand in solidarity with Palestine Action in its efforts to use non-violent direct action to stop Israel's violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. Palestine Action's current activities are largely an attempt to make good the UK Government's failure to meet its obligations under the Genocide Convention. Designating this kind of activity as "terrorist" turns the already politically charged use of the term in UK law into a sinister joke.
We do not accept that damage to property can properly be described as either "terrorism" or "violence".
Government decisions to ban organisations as "terrorist" are almost always driven by foreign policy and boosted by the hope that they will either appease or rally reactionary opinion. The decision to ban Palestine Action is no exception. Israel has been pressing the UK for years to do more to suppress Palestine Action. The group's action at RAF Brize Norton on 20 June, when its activists are said to have sprayed two Voyager tanker aircraft with red paint, provided the eventual pretext. Previous actions by the group have focussed on arms manufacturers and their financial backers.
Groups already on the UK's list of banned "terrorist" organisations include small groups built around politically motivated violence and broader political organisations, sometimes with wide support in the areas where they operate, that either engage in armed action or have a military wing that does so. PKK, Hamas and Hezbollah fall into the latter category. But Palestine Action would not, if banned, be the first non-violent organisation to be listed.
The non-violent Islamic political group Hizb Ut-Tahrir was banned in the UK 2024 after two decades of pressure for a ban. Hizb Ut-Tahrir's policies include support for an Islamic Caliphate and support for Islamic political unity for generally.
The pressure for a ban came from governments of Muslim-majority countries where Hizb Ut-Tahrir operates as a significant opposition force. It was amplified by Islamophobes in the UK who found Hizb Ut-Tahrir a convenient target. The pressure from overseas governments and domestic reactionaries was given credibility by the UK government's official view, embedded in the Prevent programme, that support for an Islamic Caliphate, though not illegal, is "extremist." When the organisation was eventually banned it was not on these grounds, but on the basis (according to its entry in the Government's list of proscribed organisations) of an evidence-free claim that the "UK government assess that Hizb ut-Tahrir, including its national branches, is currently concerned in terrorism" coupled with articles published by Hizb Ut-Tahrir that celebrated the Hamas incursion into Israel on 7 October 2023.
It is to be doubted that publication of comparable articles by a non-Islamic British political organisation in late 2023 or early 2024 would have led to that organisation being banned. It would be rash to make the same guess today, as UK complicity in Israel's genocide hardens and repression sharpens.
The ban on Hizb Ut-Tahrir ought to have been a warning to us all. But it was largely seen as a niche "Muslim" issue.
The lattitude that the UK enjoys in pinning the "terrorism" label on whoever it wishes rests partly on the over-broad definition of terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2000, partly on the even broader statutory criterion for banning - the Home Secretary only has to "believe" that an organisation is "concerned in terrorism", and partly in the arbitrary power given to the Home Secretary to an organisation to the banned list without a parliamentary vote. SACC is opposed to this legislation and to the increasingly repressive ways in which it is being used.
There was substantial opposition to these powers during the passage of the Terrorism Act 2000 through Parliament but it has become more muted in succeeding years. The proposal to ban Palestine Action is an opportunity for us all to show that there are limits to the power the Government can aggrandise on the basis of shoddy legislation.
There is widespread public sympathy and support for Palestine Action, demonstrated by the uneven success of police and prosecutors in court. Juries have on various occasions refused to convict Palestine Actionists. The proposed ban is an attempt by the Government and the police to bypass these difficulties and bully the public into changing its mind. The banning of an organisation in the UK puts much greater limits on public freedom of expression about the organisation than would a terrorism designation in the US.
We hope that MPs will speak in Parliament against the ban and will use their parliamentary privilege to speak freely about Palestine Action even if a ban is introduced.
A UK ban on Palestine Action will not prevent people organising separately from it to carry out direct action to stop Israel's genocide. Success in blocking the ban will not change the fact that people taking such action risk criminal sanctions, including jail. But the struggle over the ban will change how we talk about such things, and will change the balance of power between our movement and our genocide-enabling government.
For the moment, we remain free to express our support for the Palestine Action. If we don't use that freedom, we will lose it.
SACC also supports the GGEC/EGGEC statement on the bid to ban Palestine Action
What You Can Do
Note added 4 July 2025. This statement sets out SACC's position on the date the statement was issued (26 June 2025). Palestine Action was subsequently banned in the UK, with effect from midnight 4 July. SACC remains strongly opposed to the ban and to the powers of proscription set out in the Terrorism Act 2000. We continue to believe that non-violent direct action is a justifiable response to grave violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law such as those currently being enacted by Israel. Beyond this, nothing may be inferred from anything on this page, whether text or image, about SACC's current views on the organisation Palestine Action.
