Dossier mode
The UK Banned Palestine Action as a Terrorist Group After a Paint Attack on Two RAF Planes
The same investigation, restaged one beat at a time. Drive it with the arrow keys, space, or autoplay. Nothing is cut from the piece — long runs are split across frames. Read the full investigation or open the Surveillance State(s) hub.
The UK Banned Palestine Action as a Terrorist Group After a Paint Attack on Two RAF Planes
Then it used the ban to arrest an 84-year-old retired priest at least four times for holding a sign.
One paint attack on two planes reclassified a protest movement as a terrorist group.
Counter-terrorism law, built and sold against organisations that kill, was turned on one that protests. The property damage is real; the Court of Appeal ruling is not final; Sue Parfitt is the documented face, not a verdict on all 3,000-plus arrestees.
From Special Branch surveillance to a priest's fourth arrest.
arrested since July 2025 — most for holding signs of opinion, many explicitly not members of Palestine Action, with 700-plus formal charges.
Guardian, June 15, 2026; Metropolitan Police
The Reverend Sue Parfitt, an 84-year-old retired Anglican priest, has been arrested at least four times for supporting Palestine Action — first at 83 for holding a sign, most recently on the ban's one-year anniversary.
Confirmed contemporaneously by multiple outlets present at each protest and by Parfitt's own on-record statements. Her fourth arrest, on July 5, 2026, was under the more serious Section 12(1A) offence for orally inviting police officers to support the group, rather than the Section 13 offence typically used against sign-holders.
What the record establishes, and no court disputes.
- The House of Commons voted 385 to 26 on July 2, 2025 to proscribe Palestine Action, grouping it with al-Qaeda and Islamic State under the Terrorism Act 2000.
- The High Court ruled the proscription unlawful and disproportionate in February 2026; the Court of Appeal reversed and found it lawful in June 2026.
- Four Filton activists convicted of criminal damage were sentenced in June 2026 with a terrorism connection attached — a British first for a property-damage conviction.
- Five UN Special Rapporteurs and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have called the proscription a disproportionate misuse of counter-terrorism law.
- Special Demonstration Squad officer HN18 ('Rob Harrison') infiltrated the London International Solidarity Movement, a Palestine solidarity group, from 2004 to 2007.
“Palestine Action is not a terrorist organisation. It caused much damage confined to the weapons that are being used on the Palestinians.”
Graded FACT as a verbatim quote. The 84-year-old at the centre of the case states the distinction the graded claims turn on: property damage confined to weapons systems, versus the lethal-organisation record proscription law was written for.
The Brize Norton break-in caused a disputed amount of damage to two RAF Voyager aircraft — reported between £7 million and £30 million.
The action and real property damage are not in doubt. The AMOUNT is. A Ministry of Defence FOI response obtained by Declassified UK confirms the MoD 'does not hold' a total cost figure and cannot substantiate the widely cited £7m — which appears to have originated with AirTanker Ltd, a private leasing company, not an MoD assessment. Earlier reporting claimed figures as high as £30m. Held at PROBABLY_TRUE because damage occurred but no figure is verified.
This is the first time a UK domestic direct-action protest group has been banned under the Terrorism Act's 'serious damage to property' limb, rather than for a record of lethal violence.
Multiple legal commentators and human-rights groups describe the proscription as unprecedented, and the Court of Appeal's own judgment acknowledges the novelty of applying the property-damage limb this way. Held at PROBABLY_TRUE rather than FACT because 'first ever' claims carry the risk of an unstated historical exception this record did not exhaustively rule out.
The government's case, and what the record shows.
- Roughly £7m in damage to national security infrastructure justified urgent proscription.
- The Brize Norton action endangered the UK's defence posture.
- The ban 'does not affect lawful protest groups' campaigning on Palestine.
- The MoD 'does not hold' a cost figure; the £7m traces to a private leasing company.
- Downing Street said the incident blocked no aircraft movements; one plane flew again within 11 days.
- More than 3,000 people — many non-members holding signs — have been arrested, with 700-plus charges.
The actual, substantiated cost of the Brize Norton damage is unverified — the MoD cannot stand behind either the £7m or the £30m figure.
An MoD-held damage assessment for the two Voyager aircraft, or the primary invoice behind the £7m figure the government cited to justify proscription.
Help us fill it →Why it matters now.
A repeatedly-arrested 84-year-old priest is the public face of counter-terrorism law once it is turned on domestic protest rather than armed groups — with the courts themselves split down the middle on whether that widening is lawful. The same Metropolitan Police lineage that infiltrated Palestine solidarity groups in the 2000s now polices signs about them.
Help us fill these lines.
- OpenWhether the UK Supreme Court will grant permission to hear Huda Ammori's appeal of the Court of Appeal's ruling that the proscription is lawful — and, if so, how it will rule.
- OpenThe actual, substantiated cost of the June 2025 Brize Norton damage, given that the MoD says it cannot verify the widely cited £7 million or £30 million figures.