Palestine Action terror ban is lawful, judges rule in victory for Home Office

Palestine Action’s ban under terrorism laws will remain in place after the Court of Appeal ruled that the group’s proscription was lawful in a major win for the government.

A rare five-judge panel at the Court of Appeal found that the High Court was wrong when they previously ruled that the group’s proscription was unlawful.

Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr told the Court of Appeal on Monday that the home secretary’s decision to ban the group under terror laws was “a justified and proportionate interference with individual rights”.

“The proscription decision was not unlawful”, she told the court, describing Palestine Action as a group that “overtly promotes unlawful violence amounting to terrorism”.

The ban, which began on 5 July last year, made membership of, or support for, the direct action group a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Baroness Carr said that it was “not accurate” to describe Palestine Action as “an ordinary protest group”, saying the group was “engaged in causing serious damage to property” and “presented a very real risk of injury not only to property but also to members of the public”. In their ruling, the Court of Appeal judges said Palestine Action “had little or nothing in common with the suffragettes or the anti-apartheid or Iran war protest groups”.

The Court of Appeal agreed with the Home Office on all grounds of appeal in a definitive victory for the government. Crucially the five judges said that they were “unable to identify” any alternative steps that the home secretary could have taken other than to proscribe Palestine Action under terror laws.

The group was banned by then-home secretary Yvette Cooper in July 2025 after members broke into RAF Brize Norton and vandalised jets to protest the war in Gaza.

The five-judge panel, Baroness Carr, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Edis, Lord Justice Lewis and Lady Justice Whipple, found that Ms Cooper’s decision struck a “fair balance” between the need to safeguard national security and disrupting individuals’ rights to freedom of expression and assembly.

Responding to the ruling, Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori said she would “fight proscription all the way” to the Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights to overturn “one of the most extreme attacks on free speech and the right to protest in modern British history”.

Akiko Hart, director of human rights charity Liberty, said Monday’s judgement “risks paving the way for current and future governments to use counter terror powers against non-terrorist groups.” She added: “This case has already had, and will continue to have, a chilling effect on protest and free speech - leaving many people too afraid to protest or say the wrong thing”.

The High Court had previously ruled that Ms Cooper’s decision to ban Palestine Action under terrorism legislation was unlawful. Three senior judges at the High Court concluded that only a small number of Palestine Action’s activities amounted to terrorism, and that the group’s acts had not crossed the high bar to make it a terrorist organisation.

The High Court said that Ms Cooper had failed to consider whether imposing a terror ban on Palestine Action was “proportionate” to the threat posed by the organisation. Justice Sharp wrote that, by doing this, Ms Cooper had made a “significant” error by failing to follow the Home Office’s own policy on proscription.

However the Court of Appeal decided that the purpose of the Home Office policy was “not to limit or constrain the discretion of the home secretary”. They found that the home secretary “had the institutional competence and the democratic accountability to make the decision”.

Since the group’s proscription, thousands of people have been arrested for holding up placards in support of Palestine Action.

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