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Extremist, terrorist – or just plain fed up?


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By Maggie Hall

In this article Maggie questions the government’s decision to designate Palestine Action a terrorist organisation. Reflecting on the case of an 83-year-old retired vicar arrested for holding a placard, she explores how the definition of terrorism is being stretched to include non-violent protest. Maggie is a retired teacher of speech and drama, a former Chair of Brighton Humanists, a member of the Humanists UK Dialogue Network, and a Humanists UK School Speaker.


"Action is the antidote to despair." Joan Baez

Question: How does an 83-year-old retired vicar become a terrorist? Answer: By holding a placard proclaiming “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

On 23 June, the then Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced her intention to proscribe the campaign group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, putting it on a par with such organisations as al-Qaida and Islamic State. What have these “terrorists” done to deserve such severe treatment? Did they fly planes into buildings? Take hostages at gunpoint? Behead innocent people for belonging to the wrong faction? Drop bombs on innocent children? No, the terrorist act of which they were guilty was spraying red paint on RAF Voyager aircraft, used for transport and refuelling, as they were parked at RAF Brize Norton. The two perpetrators stated that “activists have interrupted Britain’s direct participation in the commission of genocide and war crimes across the Middle East”.

The fact that the activists were able to gain access to the area and leave again without detection, a serious breach of security, is of course a matter of great embarrassment to the Ministry of Defence. It is therefore no surprise that some sort of robust response is deemed to be necessary. However, the normal response would be to prosecute for criminal damage, not proscription under the Terrorism Act.

The fact that Palestine Action is now a proscribed organisation also means that anyone expressing support for it may face a term of imprisonment of up to 14 years. Yes, even if all they have done is to hold a placard like the one held by Sue Parfitt, the retired priest mentioned above. She was physically removed by police from a rally protesting against the banning in Parliament Square on 5 July. This was the first of several such protests and resulted in 27 arrests. Subsequent protests have resulted in much higher numbers of arrests, more than 500 at the August rally and more than 900 at a September one. The average age of those protesting was 52, with many in their seventies and eighties. This seems to indicate that they are people of mature intellect, who want their protest to be taken seriously. Hardly a naïve student protest or teenagers seeking attention.


Defining terrorism

The current UK definition of terrorism is given in the Terrorism Act 2006. It is violent action that:

  • Endangers a person’s life, other than that of the person committing the action

  • Involves serious violence against a person

  • Causes serious damage to property

  • Creates a serious risk to the public’s health and safety

  • Interferes with or seriously disrupts an electronic system

According to John Healey, the Defence Secretary at the time, seven million pounds worth of damage was caused at Brize Norton. Naturally, it is difficult for the lay person to estimate how much damage some paint might cause to an aircraft, but that seems like an enormous cleaning bill. Were lives endangered or people injured? Yvette Cooper mentioned “significant injuries” in her speech to Parliament but did not specify who sustained them or what form they took.  Does “significant injuries” equal “serious violence against a person”? Public safety would presumably not have been an issue as there would have been no members of the public present. Neither would there have been disruption of any electronic systems unless, of course, the paint got into them, which is difficult to tell from the photographs in the media. Clearly all this information is not currently available to us. That makes it difficult to draw any safe conclusions, and it is dangerous to make assumptions without full knowledge. Palestine Action may or may not be guilty of terrorism under a strict application of the Terrorism Act, but are the people who are protesting at its proscription equally guilty?


Well-meaning members of the public can certainly get things wrong, but even if they do, does that make them terrorists, or even extremists? Doesn’t it seem disproportionate to threaten them with 14 years’ imprisonment?


Defining extremism

On 14 March 2024 the government announced a new definition of extremism n the following terms:

“Extremism is the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance, that aims to:

  1. negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; or

  2. undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights; or

  3. intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2).”

In the case of those arrested for wielding their placards at a peaceful protest it’s difficult to see how this definition could apply.


Criticisms

Human rights organisations have expressed alarm at both the proscription and the arrests. Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s Chief Executive, described the Terrorism Act as “deeply flawed” and said that it “has been criticised by domestic and international human rights monitors for many years. These criticisms are based on the breadth of its wording, which goes well beyond international comparators and recognised best practice, and potentially permits disproportionate and unnecessary terrorism designations.”


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Liberty’s Director Akiko Hart said: “This is a concerning escalation of how the Government treats protest groups and uses terrorism powers. Proscribing a direct action protest group in this way potentially sets a new precedent for what we do and do not treat as terrorism."


Both organisations have been granted permission by the High Court to intervene in a hearing in November on the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group.


Volker Turk, the United Nations’ human rights chief, called the ban “disturbing” and urged the government to lift the ban on the group, also calling it “disproportionate and unnecessary”.


Human Rights lawyers have also criticised the Government’s action. Vicky Lankester, writing in the Law Society Gazette, said: “The effect of proscribing Palestine Action is that those who simply express support for the group (for example, just by peacefully holding up placards and not necessarily committing a criminal offence per se) risk conviction for terrorism offences. Even where sentences are light, such convictions can have long-term consequences, including travel restrictions and employment barriers. Should the state be prosecuting those who voice support for Just Stop Oil without engaging in criminal acts themselves, in the same way it prosecutes Palestine Action

supporters? Just Stop Oil is not proscribed, but like Palestine Action supports criminal damage as part of direct action linked to beliefs.” (See my review of Jonathon Porritt’s book on the Just Stop Oil protesters in this issue).


The legal challenge

In July, Palestine Action’s co-founder, Huda Ammori, was granted permission to appeal after her lawyers argued the ban breached the right to free speech. The Home Office has now been given permission to challenge the High Court ruling.


History shows that change rarely comes until ordinary people, pushed to desperation, make themselves a thorn in the side of the powerful. The suffragettes, the US Civil Rights movement, and Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha movement all bear testimony to this. Palestine Action may have used methods with which many people will disagree, and those protesting against its banning may not, perhaps, know the whole truth. But the mere fact that feelings run so high, and the reasons that they do so, should be understood and taken very seriously by those in power.


References and further reading

Additional information

The House of Commons voted 385–26 on 2 July 2025 to approve the order proscribing Palestine Action. The government’s Explanatory Memorandum says the decision relies on assessments including intelligence that isn’t fully public; no public consultation was conducted “given the sensitive nature” of those assessments. Proscription itself is under section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows the Home Secretary to proscribe an organisation they believe is “concerned in terrorism”, with “terrorism” defined in section 1 (e.g., serious violence or serious damage to property to influence government for a political/ideological cause). It’s not a finding that the group has already committed a specific offence; rather, it’s a preventive designation. After proscription, the relevant offences for individuals are mainly s.11 (membership), s.12 (inviting or recklessly expressing support), and s.13 (displaying support).


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