Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025

Lord Pannick Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

The suffragettes, too, have gained iconic status, rightly treated as heroines today, yet they could have been suppressed under this proscription. They used violence against property in a strategic manner to demand voting rights for women as part of civil disobedience protests when their peaceful protests seemed futile. They intended to highlight the injustice of denying women the vote and to provoke a reaction that kept the issue in the public eye. Like Nelson Mandela, they were vilified at the time, including strident denunciations by Members of your Lordships’ House. Suffragettes attacked shop windows, government buildings and political party offices, sometimes using hammers, stones or iron bars. They also set fire to unoccupied buildings such as churches, railway stations, sports pavilions and empty country houses, intending to cause material loss without causing personal injury. Suffragettes cut telegraph and telephone wires to disrupt government and commercial operations. They even hid small homemade bombs inside mailboxes and attempted to bomb Westminster Abbey and Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s unoccupied house.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Is there not a fundamental distinction between Nelson Mandela and the suffragettes on the one hand and our society today in which everybody has the right to vote? We live in a democratic society in which there are ample means of expressing your views.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

Of course democracy did not exist in South Africa at the time and women did not have the vote at the time. I concede that point but, frankly, Palestine Action members spraying paint on military aircraft in Brize Norton seems positively moderate by comparison with what the suffragettes did, and those alleged to have done this are being prosecuted for criminal damage, as indeed they should be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, was brave in moving this regret amendment, and she should have been heard with more respect. I was one of those who suggested that she should give way, but I know it can seem like bullying in this House, and I think we should reflect on that. It is not a very good thing to gang up on someone who has a difficult job to do.

I would also like to mention two others who have contributed and for whom I have great respect. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, joined the Cabinet in 2002, as I remember, as Secretary of State for Wales. He was a successful Secretary of State for Wales and then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The Terrorism Act 2000 was in existence in 2002. Offences were added and other legislation was introduced while he was in the Cabinet, and I do not recall any occasion on which, publicly at least, the noble Lord protested, objected or resigned as a result of the creation of the body of terrorism law that now we have—he is confirming that—so I think that what he has said today is perhaps a little inconsistent with his history. Forgive me for saying so.

I also commend the Minister strongly. I thought he gave a very balanced description, which in factual terms nobody has contradicted. He said that three bodies are being proscribed now. It is interesting that objections have not been made in relation to two of those bodies—probably because noble Lords do not really like what they do very much, because they are extreme right-wing terrorists—but exactly the same process has been gone through with them as with Palestine Action. What is that process? To examine intelligence that no doubt exists, but that we have not heard about. In this House, we have to be responsible and take it that there is an intelligence case behind what is proposed. Material evidence has been brought together that shows that this organisation, Palestine Action, like the other two, has carried out activities that fall within the definition of crime that can, and I emphasise “can”, be treated as terrorist.

The context is that what has happened since the Terrorism Act 2000—since 9/11, in fact—is quite different from the world in which the suffragettes, the Greenham women and all the other examples that have been mentioned, including very successful anti-apartheid demonstrators such as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, lived. It is a given. That has not been objected to. Even the noble Baroness has not said that Palestine Action does not commit crimes that qualify as terrorist crimes, if they are prosecuted as such.

Noble Lords should not assume that every time a crime is committed that could be prosecuted as such, it is. The Crown Prosecution Service and the Director of Public Prosecutions have to make a decision. One of the most important protections in our constitution, which we talk about all too rarely, is the discretion of the DPP not to prosecute in the public interest or for other reasons covered by the two-stage code test. It may well be that if silly supporters of the criminal acts of Palestine Action or these other two bodies are interviewed by the police, they will not be prosecuted under the Terrorism Act. We have to trust juries, and magistrates in summary cases, to ensure that the prosecution system is run fairly. In this House, and particularly in the other place, there is a huge amount of control available over the prosecution system.

Let us be clear. If we do not like the definition of terrorism we have in our law, it is our duty as legislators to change it—and we have all decided not to change it. When it suits us, we encourage it to be used: something has to be done. When it is a bit inconvenient, we say that it is the most terrible thing on earth. The truth is the middle road, which has been given to us by the Minister. I urge your Lordships to act responsibly today, listening carefully to what has been said, taking into account what we can do in future, but accepting this instrument.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I have a few short points. I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has just said.

First, I hope that when we vote, if we vote, we will entirely put out of our minds whether we sympathise with the Palestinian cause, as most of us do, and whether we regret what Israel has done in various respects. We are concerned with a violent group. It really does not matter whether the cause it articulates and supports is justified. The law in a civilised country simply cannot accept people using violence against people and property in support of a cause they believe to be right. No such law can survive in a civilised society.

Secondly, if I understood him correctly, the Minister has explained why it is not sufficient for the law simply to prosecute people who commit criminal acts of the sort that are alleged—I agree that we have to be very careful here, for sub judice reasons—against members of Palestine Action. The point, if I have understood the Minister correctly—and he will say if I have not—is that there is a vital public need to prevent these people organising and recruiting, and the only way in which the law can do that is to take the action that the Minister is proposing today, which I strongly support.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am a little concerned about how the sides are being laid out in this discussion. I have some serious worries about proscribing Palestine Action and have a lot of sympathy with the regret amendment, but not because I consider Palestine Action to be some idealised, cuddly, heroic campaign for peace. I have no sympathy with its destructive, wanton, often violent and nihilistic assaults on factories, air bases and so on. The individuals deserve criminal prosecution and punishment. God knows, we have enough draconian laws on the statute book to throw the book at them.

What we are challenging here is whether the concept of them being proscribed as a terrorist organisation is appropriate, not whether they are nice, peace-loving, wonderful Greenham Common types. That is the wrong way to look at it. In an earlier intervention, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, asked whether these could indeed be terrorist acts. I think that they could well be assessed as acts of terrorism without proscribing a whole organisation.

These are my reservations. I am worried about criminalising the vocalising of support for this organisation. Vocalising support for a reprehensible law-breaking protest group is one thing, but once it is proscribed, we are talking about the possibility of prison sentences of up to 14 years. All of this was brilliantly explained legally by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. You could, even if you only say that you support them, end up in prison.

The problem we have is that it is true that Palestine Action’s cause and its broader support are very popular —we have heard it here today. I do not mean that it is populist; I mean that many young people support that outlook. I do not. I spend a lot of time at the moment going around arguing with those young people about what I consider to be the growth of casual antisemitism and an intense hatred of Israel that seeps into Jew hatred. I talk a lot about that wherever I go, but it is certainly the case that I am not on the winning side on this one. If you go into universities and sixth forms, many support them. I am worried about the consequences of proscribing this organisation because it can threaten free speech. There are also going to be a lot of people who could be classified as in breach of it.

We should note that, for the first time since records began, this week the UK is no longer classified as an open country in the global expression rankings, which is shameful. In case noble Lords think the global expression rankings are some JD Vance-like prejudice or something, it is actually an annual report by Article 19, which noticed that free speech is seriously deteriorating in this country, so I put that warning out. We have to be very careful that this proscription does not have a chilling effect or, even worse, give some credibility to the idea that supporters of Palestine Action are some kind of free speech heroes and martyrs along with, undoubtedly Bobby—what is his name?