Do we dare read Sally Rooney… or is that too an act of terror?

By publicly supporting Palestine Action, authors and their readers could be in breach of the law

- Phillippe Sands

Every legislative act is liable to produce unintended consequences. So it is with order number 803 of July 2025 — the Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order.

This controversial instrument, promulgated by the home secretary the month before, determined that the direct actions of Palestine Action — causing serious harm to property, harassing people etc with the aim of stopping arm sales to Israel - was not merely criminal but terroristic. The organisation has challenged its listing as a terror group and legal proceedings are under way - some behind closed doors because, we are told, the full rationale for the decision is sensitive and we, the public, cannot be allowed to know it.

Sally Rooney, the renowned Irish writer, has contributed two witness statements expressing her support for the organisation and its members. She believes they are part of Britain’s “long and proud tradition of civil disobedience — the deliberate breaking of laws as an act of protest”, in the spirit of the suffragettes and, more recently in the context of the Iraq war, the breaching of RAF bases to protest a violation of international law.