Palestine Action makes final appeal to UK's Supreme Court as new direct action group emerges

The banned campaign group Palestine Action will make its final appeal in the UK Supreme Court on Wednesday, seeking a reversal of its proscription, days after a new pro-Palestine group raided a defence company to smash satellite equipment with sledgehammers.

Huda Al Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, is seeking to quash a decision made by the government in July 2025 to designate the group as a terrorist organisation.

Her lawyers will argue that the ban on Palestine Action “failed to strike a fair balance” between the rights of those affected by the campaigns and those of the community, and that the Home Office had other measures available to it to curb the group’s actions.

Documents submitted to the court ahead of the trial by Raza Hussain KC, who represents Ms Ammori, claim that “less than 1 per cent of PA’s direct action protest activities over five years fell within a definition of terrorism”.

The High Court found the proscription unlawful last year, but the Court of Appeal overturned the decision, based on the group's secretive nature and use of violence in some instances.

Jewish community groups, the Community Security Trust and the Jewish Leadership Council, have been granted permission to intervene.

The groups will said they will highlight that Palestine Action’s “violent activism” had expanded from focusing on companies activists believed were linked to Israel to “targeting Jewish-owned businesses and premises in Jewish community areas”.

“We are intervening in this case to take a stand against Palestine Action’s use of political violence and terrorism," the groups said.

"Our submissions explain why the continued proscription of Palestine Action matters, not only for the Jewish community, but for society as a whole."

Palestine Action was proscribed by Yvette Cooper, home secretary at the time, after activists raided a British airbase. The incident was found in previous trials to have cost £1.7 million, with the final bill potentially reaching £15 million.

Concerns were raised at the time about possible Iranian funding to the group, a claim it has denied.

Activists

On Monday, a new campaign group, People Against Genocide, claimed it had broken into a defence company’s complex in Tring, Hertfordshire, to damage equipment.

A video posted on the group’s Instagram showed activists smashing satellite dishes and other equipment at the site with sledgehammers.

The group claimed that the firm, Ultra Intelligence & Communications (I&C), was supplying communications equipment to Israeli weapons firm Elbit systems, and that it also “supplies the Israeli military directly with satellites".

Show caption: Activists of the group People Against Genocide break into Ul…

The group said the attack was made to mark the 109^th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which then Arthur Balfour, UK foreign secretary at the time, promised “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

"Today, crucial weapons and components needed to maintain the ongoing genocide and colonisation of Palestine, are made and exported from Britain," the group wrote on Instagram.

An earlier raid at the centre in Tring in July allegedly caused £1.3 million in damage. The group has also struck the firm's sites in Aberdeen and Cambridge, and have also carried out acts against the transport company DSV in the UK.

Mass arrests

Show caption: Police arrest demonstrators outside The Supreme Court for ho…

A protest in support of Palestine Action, at which arrests were made, was held outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday during the hearing.

Police also detained 325 people during a protest in support of the group outside the US embassy last weekend.

The decision to proscribe Palestine Action has seen a large-scale campaign of people seeking mass arrest by expressing support for the group. More than 4,000 people have been arrested under terrorism laws for taking part in these demonstrations.

Supporters maintain that the group is not violent and that terrorism legislation is being misused.

On Wednesday, 150 academics and writers, including the Irish writer Sally Rooney, wrote to the Supreme Court to express their backing of the group.

"We oppose genocide, so we support Palestine Action," the letter said.

A representative of Defend Our Juries, which has been organising the mass demonstrations against the proscription, said the government's use of terror laws to arrest campaigners was worse than what has been seen in Russia, China or North Korea.

“Britain prides itself on its democracy, but nowhere else in the world has the regular mass arrest of elderly and disabled people as terrorists become normalised,” the letter said.