The government should pass new legislation if needed to ensure Palestine Action remains banned, MPs on both sides of the Commons have told the JC.
The call comes after the recent High Court ruling that the proscription of the group as a terrorist organisation was unlawful.
The decision overturned a parliamentary vote last year to place Palestine Action in the same legal category as Hamas and Al Qaeda.
The ban followed several years of attacks on property by the group, including against Jewish-owned businesses.
It remains in place pending the government’s bid to appeal the decision.
The government’s former adviser on political violence and disruption, Lord Walney, has proposed outlawing groups engaged in “criminal sabotage” without designating them as a terrorist organisation.
The former Labour MP has tabled the proposal as an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill currently in the House of Lords.
Now MPs have urged the government to use this or similar legislative options should their challenge of the High Court’s decision fail.
Jack Rankin, the Conservative MP for Windsor, told the JC: “Parliament voted by a huge majority to proscribe Palestine Action and the Home Office’s appeal must succeed. Otherwise, this risks fanning the flames of progressive extremism and antisemitism in Britain.”
Suggesting the Government should consider Walney’s proposal, he said: “If it [the challenge] fails, we need a way of banning these groups that engage in state sabotage and that is exactly what this amendment would do. The government should be ready to adopt it.”
Greg Smith MP, chair of Conservative Friends of Israel, also backed further legislation to stop the group.
He told the JC: “Parliament is sovereign. MPs already voted overwhelmingly to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group, if it takes further legislation to complete this important counter-terror work, then so be it.”
Democratic Unionist Party MP Sammy Wilson said that the government should consider supporting Walney’s amendment.
He told the JC: “Palestine Action have shown themselves to engage in acts of terrorising members of the Jewish community through their actions. They’re attacking Jewish businesses and they’re intimidating ordinary members of the Jewish community.”
The MP for East Antrim cautioned the government against showing any weakness: “If they’re seen to give in, they could be seen to be giving a green light to Palestine Action’s campaigns of intimidation.”
Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) chair Mark Sewards MP said that the High Court’s ruling is “deeply concerning” and threatened “to unleash a wave of hate against Israelis, businesses and the Jewish community”.
The Labour MP for Leeds South West and Morley backed the Home Office’s appeal against the Court, saying: “Palestine Action cannot and must not be allowed to resume its pernicious activities; the previous results of which included a police officer being attacked with a sledgehammer.”
He suggested the government should consider an approach shown by Australia to allow robust action against “prohibited hate groups”.
Sewards said: “The last two years have underlined the desperate need for Britain to adopt a new counter-extremism strategy to address the culture of impunity surrounding ‘hateful extremism’ identified by the Commission for Countering Extremism in 2021. As a first step, we should follow the lead of Australia and introduce a new legal framework to allow organisations to be designated as ‘prohibited hate groups’ with a range of accompanying offences.”
MPs voted by 385 to 26 in July last year to proscribe Palestine Action.
After the High Court overturned the ban, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, said she was “disappointed” and that the government would look to appeal the judgement.
Reform deputy leader Richard Tice told the JC the court’s ruling was “utterly disgraceful”. The deputy to Nigel Farage said: “Judges have effectively said that more Jews need to be intimidated, hurt or killed by Palestine Action before they should be proscribed as a terror group.”
On Sunday, Priti Patel, former home secretary and now shadow foreign secretary, said it was “time to tighten up the rules on the proscription of such groups to ensure they cannot get away with such disgraceful behaviour. The rule of law must be defended.”
During the parliamentary debate last year prior to the ban being voted through, the group’s attacks on Jewish buildings and businesses were raised by Labour MP Jon Pearce.
The then chair of LFI said: “A building housing Jewish-owned businesses in North Manchester was vandalised with red paint and graffiti reading ‘Happy Nakba Day’.
“Later that month, a Jewish-owned business in Stamford Hill was attacked by the organisation with windows broken, red paint graffiti and damage done to the building’s mezuzah.”
The decision by the government to proscribe Palestine Action was taken shortly after activists from the group filmed themselves breaking into RAF Brize Norton and causing damage to aircraft.
Earlier this month, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said that six Palestine Action activists would face a retrial after they were cleared of aggravated burglary at a raid on Elbit systems in August 2024.
A female police officer was left with a “shattered spine” following the break-in at the Filton site in August 2024.
The court failed to reach a judgement in relation to several charges against the activists.
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