Government to ban Palestine Action, home secretary confirms

BBCThe Metropolitan Police had blocked protesters from gathering outdoors Parliament Rachel Muller-HeyndykBBC NewsEllie PriceBBC Information in central LondonHome Secretary Yvette Cooper says she has determined to proscribe Palestine Motion beneath anti-terror legislation. This successfully manufacturers the group a terrorist organisation and, if handed in Parliament, would make membership of and assist of the group unlawful. Activists from the group broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire final week and spray-painted army planes purple.The announcement got here as Palestine Motion held a protest in central London, with a whole bunch in attendance and a minimum of three arrests made as scuffles broke out.Cooper described the vandalism on the RAF base as a “disgraceful assault” and that the group had a “lengthy historical past of unacceptable prison injury”.”The UK’s defence enterprise is important to the nation’s nationwide safety and this Authorities is not going to tolerate people who put that safety in danger,” she added.Following the assault on the bottom final week, Palestine Motion mentioned: “Regardless of publicly condemning the Israeli authorities, Britain continues to ship army cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US and Israeli fighter jets.”Reacting to information that the federal government would transfer to ban it on Friday, it added: “When our authorities fails to uphold their ethical and authorized obligations, it’s the duty of extraordinary residents to take direct motion.”PA MediaSome scuffles broke out in the course of the protest Cooper will lay the draft order earlier than Parliament subsequent week.If handed, the ban would make it a prison offence to belong to or assist the group, punishable by as much as 14 years in jail.Cooper mentioned in a written assertion: “This resolution is restricted to Palestine Motion and doesn’t have an effect on lawful protest teams and different organisations campaigning on points round Palestine or the Center East.”She added that the group had dedicated a number of acts of significant injury because it was created in 2020, costing greater than £1m in injury. In 2022, the group broke into Thales defence manufacturing unit in Glasgow, setting off pyrotechnics and throwing a smoke bomb into an space the place workers have been being evacuated.The injury on the web site was estimated at £1,130,783.Cooper additionally referenced two incidents final yr, when seven Palestine Motion members have been arrested for aggravated housebreaking on the Instro Precision manufacturing unit in Kent, whereas a number of others broke into the Bristol HQ of Elbit Programs UK. “I’ve thought-about rigorously the character and scale of Palestine Motion’s exercise. Proscription represents a respectable response to the menace posed by Palestine Motion,” Cooper added.Tons of of individuals met at Trafalgar Sq. after police banned them from protesting outdoors of Parliament.Organisers made the last-minute venue change after Scotland Yard enforced an exclusion zone throughout a lot of Westminster. Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley mentioned whereas the power had no authorized energy to cease the protest, they might impose the situations “robustly”.Charing Cross, subsequent to Trafalgar Sq., was blocked for a time because the protesters gathered. Some supporters of the group waved Palestinian flags and carried placards, with different protesters chanting: “We is not going to be silenced.” The Met mentioned two folks had been arrested for obstruction, with a 3rd arrest earlier for a racially aggravated public order offence.Labour peer and activist Baroness and Shami Chakrabarti mentioned forward of Cooper’s assertion that whereas she didn’t advocate prison exercise in protest, she felt proscription was a “step too far.” Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, mentioned that the transfer is a misuse of terrorism-related powers. “We must always all be involved about plans to proscribe Palestine Motion as a terrorist group. It units a harmful precedent, which governments in future might additional use towards their critics,” she wrote on X.Chancellor Rachel Reeves condemned Palestine Motion’s behaviour as “completely unacceptable”.”To trigger injury to army belongings, but in addition to trigger such injury to privately owned belongings, it’s unacceptable no matter your views are on what’s taking place within the Center East,” she mentioned forward of Cooper’s assertion.