MPs proscribe Palestine Action as a terror group

MPs have backed the government’s move to ban the direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, despite warnings that this would have a “chilling effect” on protest.

- MILLIE COOKE POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

Legislation passed in the Commons yesterday, as MPs voted by a majority of 359 to proscribe the group under the Terrorism Act 2000.

While security minister Dan Jarvis told MPs that Palestine Action was not a “legitimate protest group”, others criticised the move and described it as “draconian overreach” and likened the group to the Suffragettes.

Zarah Sultana, the independent MP for Coventry South, told the Commons: “To equate a spray can of paint with a suicide bomb isn’t just absurd, it is grotesque. It is a deliberate distortion of the law to chill dissent, criminalise solidarity and suppress the truth.”

The motion is expected to be debated and voted on by the House of Lords today before it becomes law.

Meanwhile, pro-Palestine demonstrators have hit out at the government, accusing it of “hypocrisy” as it prepares to ban an activist group under anti-terror law. The decision to proscribe the group comes after two planes were vandalised at RAF Brize Norton on 20 June.

Speaking to The Independent while demonstrating outside parliament, David Collins, a retired veteran with no links to Palestine Action and who served with the Marines for nine years, said: “In comparison to some of the atrocities that this government is approving - and sending arms to Israel - amongst some people that is justified action. They are warplanes that can be repaired. There was nobody hurt. I would say that is a legitimate form of protest.”