Palestine Action are banned because they targeted Jewish businesses, Starmer tells Labour NEC

She added: “Keir said that all organisations are held to the same standard, and Palestine Action has a history of break-ins, sabotage and targeting Jewish-owned businesses … He assured us that the ban is not intended to stifle debate on Palestine.”

Speaking to the JC, one NEC source confirmed Black’s account of events and said that the prime minister was unrepentant in defence of the government’s decision.

“He was quite forthright about it … basically said we’re not going to apologise for proscribing a group that’s targeted RAF bases and Jewish businesses” they added.

The meeting was held prior to last week’s High Court decision to grant the founder of Palestine Action permission to judicially review the ban.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, the prime minister’s spokesperson said that despite the legal challenge, the group remained a proscribed terrorist organisation.

“Palestine Action is a proscribed group in the UK, and the court confirmed last week the continuation of that prescription order while allowing permission for a further hearing under the normal procedures”, he said, adding: “Those who seek to support this group may yet not know the true nature of this organisation, but people should be under no illusion. This is not a peaceful or non-violent protest group”.

He went on to say that Palestine Action’s activities “do not reflect or represent the 1000s of people across this country who continue to exercise their fundamental right to protest on difficult and different issues.”

And, during an interview with Sky News on Tuesday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper suggested that the group was planning further violence.

She defended the decision to proscribe the group amid a planned protest against the measure on Saturday: “Let's be clear: this is not about Palestine or protesting about Palestine. This is about a particular, narrow, specific group that has both a violent record and information and about future planning as well.

“More of that information is likely to be really revealed once court cases come through, and can't be in advance. But I would say to people, this is not a non-violent organisation.”

In June, the Times reported that Home Office officials were investigating whether Palestine Action was being funded via the proxies of the Iranian regime.

NGO Monitor, a research institute that publishes analysis about non-governmental organisations, their funders, and stakeholders, said: “Palestine Action does not publish financial information, reflecting a lack of transparency and accountability.”

During the Commons debate to proscribe Palestine Action in July, Jon Pearce MP, the chair of Labour Friends of Israel, described the group’s “track record of attacks against the country’s Jewish community”.

“In May, 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. In the latter case, Palestine Action’s claims that the business was linked to Israeli defence companies proved baseless.”

“This campaign of antisemitic harassment reveals the logical conclusion of its extremism. The important difference between it and all the other groups mentioned in the House is that it targets a specific ethnic and religious minority in our country.”

Security Minister Dan Jarvis told MPs that the group had “orchestrated a nationwide campaign of attacks that have resulted in serious damage to property and crossed the threshold between direct criminal action and terrorism”.

The move to proscribe the organisation came shortly after activists from the group filmed themselves breaking into RAF Brize Norton and spraying red paint into the engines of one of the aircraft there.