MPs vote to assist proscribing Palestine Action as terror group | EUROtoday

MPs have backed the federal government’s transfer to ban the direct motion group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, regardless of warnings that this is able to have a “chilling effect” on protest.

Legislation handed within the Commons yesterday, as MPs voted 385 to 26, a majority of 359 in favour of proscribing the group underneath the Terrorism Act 2000.

While safety minister Dan Jarvis instructed MPs that Palestine Action as not a “legitimate protest group”, others criticised the transfer and described it as “draconian overreach” and likened the group to the Suffragettes.

Zarah Sultana, the impartial MP for Coventry South, instructed the Commons: “To equate a spray can of paint with a suicide bomb isn’t just absurd, it is grotesque. It is a deliberate distortion of the law to chill dissent, criminalise solidarity and suppress the truth.”

The movement is anticipated to be debated and voted on by the House of Lords at present earlier than it turns into regulation.

Meanwhile, pro-Palestine demonstrators have hit out on the authorities, accusing it of “hypocrisy” because it prepares to ban an activist group underneath anti-terror regulation.

The determination to proscribe the group comes after two planes had been vandalised at RAF Brize Norton on June 20.

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Speaking to The Independent whereas demonstrating exterior parliament, David Collins, a retired veteran with no hyperlinks to Palestine Action and who served with the Marines for 9 years, mentioned: “In comparison to some of the atrocities that this government is approving – and sending arms to Israel – amongst some people that is justified action. They are warplanes that can be repaired. There was nobody hurt. I would say that is a legitimate form of protest.”

Jonathan Fluxman, 69, a retired physician who was additionally demonstrating on Wednesday, mentioned a ban was “utterly ridiculous”. “Palestine action are a direct action group. They are avowedly non-violent and I think this is much more about them embarrassing the British government by being incredibly effective in terms of interrupting the flow of weapons from Britain to Israel to try and stop the awful, awful genocide”, he mentioned.

Four folks, together with “a man who blocked the gates of Downing Street with his mobility scooter”, have been arrested following the protest in Westminster, the Metropolitan Police has mentioned.

On Tuesday, two extra arrests had been made after Palestine Action claimed to have blockaded the doorway of an Israeli defence firm’s UK headquarters. A spokesperson for the group mentioned activists had blocked the doorway to Elbit Systems in Bristol and coated it in crimson paint “to symbolise Palestinian bloodshed”.

Kat, one other protester demonstrating exterior parliament on Wednesday morning, accused the federal government of a “complete clampdown on our right to protest”. She mentioned: “There are many groups that use the same tactics and have used the same tactics in the past and they’ve never had this extreme a response to it. I think they’re shutting it down because its effective. It is making an impact on the profits of Elbit Systems who is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer.”

But house secretary Yvette Cooper mentioned “violence and serious criminal damage has no place in legitimate protest. The right to protest and the right to free speech are the cornerstone of our democracy and there are countless campaign groups that freely exercise those rights.”

The prime minister, Keir Starmer, mentioned the motion at RAF Brize Norton was “disgraceful” and an “act of vandalism”.

The shadow house secretary, Chris Philp, additionally condemned the group, saying: “This attack on Britain’s military is totally unjustified. They are undermining the very organisation that protects us all. Palestine Action should be pursued, prosecuted and banned for what they have done. In this country we settle disagreements through debate and democracy, not through acts of vandalism and violence.”

A spokesperson for Palestine Action mentioned: “While the government is rushing through parliament absurd legislation to proscribe Palestine Action, the real terrorism is being committed in Gaza. Palestine Action affirms that direct action is necessary in the face of Israel’s ongoing crimes against humanity of genocide, apartheid and occupation, and to end British facilitation of those crimes.”

Opening the controversy within the Commons on Wednesday, safety minister Dan Jarvis mentioned proscription of the group would “reaffirm the UK’s zero tolerance approach to terrorism, regardless of its form or underlying ideology”.

“Proscription is rightly ideologically neutral. It judges an organisation on its actions and the actions it is willing to deploy in pursuit of its cause”, he mentioned, including that proscription was “one of the most powerful counter-terrorism tools available to government. Any decision to proscribe is taken with great care and following rigorous consideration.”

Unveiling the intention to ban the group following the incident on June 23, Cooper mentioned it was the newest in a “long history of unacceptable criminal damage committed by Palestine Action”.

The group, which intends to deliver a authorized problem towards the federal government, has staged a sequence of demonstrations in latest months, together with spraying the London workplaces of Allianz Insurance with crimson paint over its alleged hyperlinks to Elbit, and vandalising Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire.

Palestine Action’s web site says it makes use of disruptive techniques to focus on “corporate enablers of the Israeli military-industrial complex” and seeks to make it “impossible for these companies to profit from the oppression of Palestinians”.

Some 81 organisations have been proscribed underneath the 2000 Act, together with Islamist teams akin to Hamas and al-Qaeda, far-right teams akin to National Action, and the Russian personal army firm the Wagner Group.

The draft order laid on Monday additionally lists neo-Nazi group Maniacs Murder Cult and far-right nationalist group Russian Imperial Movement, together with its paramilitary arm, Russian Imperial Legion, to be proscribed within the UK.

Belonging to or expressing assist for a proscribed organisation, together with plenty of different actions, are legal offences carrying a most sentence of 14 years in jail.