❓WHAT HAPPENED: Members of Parliament (MPs) in Britain’s House of Commons voted to proscribe the Palestine Action group as a terrorist organization under the Terrorism Act 2000.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: MPs in the House of Commons, pro-Palestinian demonstrators, and government officials, including Security Minister Dan Jarvis and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The vote took place on Wednesday in the House of Commons, with further debate expected in the House of Lords on Thursday.
💬KEY QUOTE: “Proscription is rightly ideologically neutral. It judges an organisation on its actions and the actions it is willing to deploy in pursuit of its cause.” – Security Minister Dan Jarvis
🎯IMPACT: The decision criminalizes support for Palestine Action and could result in sentences of up to 14 years for offenses related to it.
Britain’s House of Commons has voted to designate Palestine Action, an extremist group responsible for acts of sabotage at British military bases and defense industry facilities, as a terrorist organization under the Terrorism Act 2000. The decision passed with a majority of 359 votes, as 385 MPs supported the motion and 26 opposed it. The legislation now moves to the House of Lords for further debate—although the British upper chamber’s powers to restrain the lower chamber are far weaker than the U.S. Senate’s.
Security Minister Dan Jarvis defended the move, stating that the proscription would “reaffirm the UK’s zero tolerance approach to terrorism, regardless of its form or underlying ideology.” The move follows a high-profile incident in which Palestine Action activists broke into a Royal Air Force (RAF) base and sabotaged crucial military aircraft, and a raid last year on a defense industry facility that saw police officers injured with sledgehammers.
The decision has sparked criticism from far-left MPs and activists. Independent Muslim MP Zarah Sultana described the move as a “deliberate distortion of the law to chill dissent, criminalize solidarity, and suppress the truth.”
Palestine Action claims to be a non-violent direct action group targeting companies linked to Israel‘s defense industry, despite attacking police with sledgehammers last year. The group has vowed to challenge the proscription in court. They argue that their actions are necessary to oppose what they call “genocide, apartheid, and occupation” in Gaza.
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