Home Office staff concerned about ‘absurd’ Palestine Action ban

The Guardian reports on comments by a senior civil servant that Home Office staff are concerned about the “absurd” decision to ban Palestine Action under UK anti-terrorism laws:

On Monday the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced plans to ban the group, which would make membership of it, or inviting support for it, a criminal offence under the Terrorism Act, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

It would be the first time a direct action protest group has been classified as a terrorist organisation, joining the likes of Islamic State, al-Qaida and National Action. The move has been condemned as draconian by many other protest groups, civil society organisations and politicians of different stripes.

A senior Home Office official, who requested anonymity as they are not allowed to speak to the press, said concerns about proscribing Palestine Action extended into the home secretary’s own department.

“My colleagues and I were shocked by the announcement,” they said. “All week, the office has been a very tense atmosphere, charged with concern about treating a non-violent protest group the same as actual terrorist organisations like Isis, and the dangerous precedent this sets.

“From desk to desk, colleagues are exchanging concerned and bemused conversations about how absurd this is and how impossible it will be to enforce. Are they really going to prosecute as terrorists everyone who expresses support for Palestine Action’s work to disrupt the flow of arms to Israel as it commits war crimes?

“It’s ridiculous and it’s being widely condemned in anxious conversations internally as a blatant misuse of anti-terror laws for political purposes to clamp down on protests which are affecting the profits of arms companies.”

The paper reports the response of Palestine Action, who argue that “proscription is not about enabling prosecutions under terrorism laws – it’s about cracking down on non-violent protests which disrupt the flow of arms to Israel during its genocide in Palestine”.

They have a valid point about the government seeking to stifle non-violent protest. There are already laws in place that can punish those who destroy or damage government property. Instead, the Labour government has planted both feet onto a very slippery slope.

On the publicly available criteria for this action, they would also have proscribed the suffragettes, Greenpeace, the Greenham Common women and a host of other groups, including farmers protesting fuel prices and the Country Landowners Association, all intent on changing public policy through direct, non-violent action. That is not a democratic approach.