Labour 'digging a hole' over Palestine Action ban, peer says

A former cabinet minister has said the government is "digging itself into a hole" over Palestine Action and fellow Labour peers and MPs were regretting voting to ban the group.

- Ben Quinn

The warning by Peter Hain, who opposed proscription, came as a Labour backbencher who supported it said it would arise again when parliament returned in September.

Lord Hain, who was a leader of the anti-apartheid movement and the Anti-Nazi League in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s, criticised the response to recent protests in support of Palestine Action.

"It will end in tears for the government," he said. "We are seeing retired magistrates, retired and serving doctors and all sorts of people being arrested and now effectively being equated with terrorists such as al-Qaida, which is absolutely wrong."

He said if a legal challenge to the proscription was successful, it "would be a mercy to all concerned, including the government".

The peer was one of three Labour members of the Lords to vote against banning the group in July. Lord John Hendy, a barrister and employment law expert, and Frances O'Grady, a former TUC general secretary, also opposed the move.