Welcome to the Deep Dive. I am really glad you
could join us today because we have a genuinely
fascinating sequence of events to explore. We
really do. It's one of those stories that, you
know, starts small and then just completely snowballs.
Exactly. You know how sometimes a localized story
just escalates until it's testing the absolute
limits of a country's legal and political systems?
That is exactly what we are looking at today.
We are pulling our information from a comprehensively
documented Wikipedia article, and it details
the complete history. of a British direct action
network called Palestine Action. Okay, let's
unpack this. We are looking at a group that went
from splashing red paint on buildings to breaching
a Royal Air Force base, triggering a national
terrorism ban, and culminating in a historic
high court reversal just weeks ago in February
2026. It is a staggering timeline. It really
is. Now, before we get into the weeds, I want
to be crystal clear with you. Because our source
material covers highly charged political actions
and touches on the ongoing Gaza conflict, this
deep dive is strictly reporting the facts and
events exactly as they are documented in the
source. Absolutely. We are definitely not taking
sides here. Right. No endorsements of the group's
actions and no validation of the government's
response either. Our goal is simply to help you
understand the incredible legal and social sequence
of events contained in this material. And what's
fascinating here is that this single group's
timeline. serves as a massive stress test for
British law. As we go through these events, you
will see how it forces society to examine the
very boundaries between civil disobedience, economic
sabotage, and national security. It asks this
critical question, at what point does disruptive
protest actually cross the legal... threshold
into terrorism. Which is a huge question. It
is. The state's machinery was essentially forced
to react to tactics. It just hadn't fully anticipated
on this scale. So to understand how the state
reacted, we really need to look at who they were
dealing with and what the initial goals were.
Right. According to our source, Palestine Action
was founded in July 2020. The founders were Huda
Amori and Richard Barnard, and their stated mission
was to end global participation in what they
described as Israel's regime. And they decided
to focus that mission very specifically on...
The U .K. arms industry. Exactly. The targets
were highly specific. They primarily went after
a company called Elbit Systems. That's an Israeli
weapons manufacturer. And they have multiple
factories and subsidiaries operating across the
United Kingdom. They also heavily targeted Leonardo,
which is a major aerospace company. Yeah. Targeting
the supply chain was the core strategy here.
They went after various logistical firms, lobbying
firms. Essentially, anyone they believed was
complicit in the manufacturing or distribution
of weapons. But the defining characteristic of
Palestine action wasn't just who they targeted.
No, it was the methodology. Right. They completely
bypassed the traditional protest model. Yeah.
There was no standing outside a factory gate
with picket signs asking for a meeting with management.
Right. None of that. They engaged in direct physical
economic sabotage that was explicitly designed
to halt production lines entirely. And the signature
visual of these protests was highly coordinated.
Activists would show up wearing these bright
red boiler suits and they would climb onto the
roofs of these manufacturing facilities. Occupy
them. Occupy them, sometimes for days at a time.
They used sledgehammers to systematically dismantle
machinery on the roof, smash windows. But the
most recognizable tactic, the one that produced
all those viral images, was daubing these buildings
in massive amounts of red paint. And they weren't
just using paintbrushes. They were using repurposed
fire extinguishers to just blast the facades
of these factories. Which, when you think about
it, the logistics of orchestrating these occupations
are quite complex. You have individuals successfully
breaching... Private, supposedly secure corporate
facilities. They are scaling the architecture
and entrenching themselves so deeply that police
actually had to bring in specialist climbing
teams just to remove them. It's wild. And the
source mentions one specific instance in Bristol
that really paints a picture. Activists literally
drove a cherry picker style vehicle right up
to the second floor of an Elbit facility. A cherry
picker? Yeah. Broad daylight. They used a hammer
attached to a rope to systematically smash the
reinforced windows before dousing the interior
offices with red paint. The visual of someone
casually operating heavy machinery to smash second
-story windows is definitely striking. It really
is. And they didn't stop at factories. They also
went after academic institutions they felt were
involved in the supply chain. At the University
of Manchester, members broke into a glass cabinet
in the chemistry building and walked off with
two busts of Chaim Weizmann. He was the first
president of Israel, right? Exactly, and a former
teacher at that university. The group released
a statement claiming they had abducted the busts.
Wow. And then at a Leonardo factory in Edinburgh,
they escalated beyond just paint and glass. Activists
managed to locate the actual internet cable boxes
for the facility. Oh, right. They sprayed expanding
foam directly into the hardware and cut the wires
to completely sever the factory's communications.
Which is a highly targeted form of logistical
warfare. I mean, severing the internet of a modern
aerospace manufacturer brings operations to an
immediate grinding halt. Instantly. And the source
material makes it clear that this wasn't just
symbolic noise. It caused severe logistical disruption
and millions of pounds in physical damage. Real
economic impact. Exactly. The group's sustained
pressure actually contributed to the permanent
closure of an Elbit subsidiary in Oldham. Another
site at Aztec West in Bristol closed down unexpectedly,
too. They completely abandoned a lease that was
supposed to run until 2029. And beyond the real
estate, our source notes that these multi -day
shutdowns potentially contributed to the loss
of a massive £2 .1 billion Ministry of Defense
contract. Billion with a B. So they were undeniably
achieving their stated goals of economic disruption
against private companies. But here's where it
gets really interesting. In June 2025, the stakes
completely changed. This is the pivot. The entire
narrative shifted from corporate vandalism to
a national security crisis. Activists rode electric
scooters onto RAF Brise Norton. Which is an active
Royal Air Force military base in Oxfordshire.
Right. They somehow bypassed military security,
got right up to two Royal Air Force Airbus A330
refueling planes and used those repurposed fire
extinguishers to spray red paint directly into
the jet engines. The jet engines. Yes. And the
activists released statements afterward claiming
that the base was being used to send flights
to Cyprus for reconnaissance over Gaza and that
Britain was actively refueling U .S. and Israeli
fighter jets. They framed the vandalism. But
the official pushback on that was strong. Very
strong. The Ministry of Defense, along with subsequent
reporting by the BBC, thoroughly rebutted that
narrative. They released logs clarifying that
those two specific aircraft had not been used
to support the Israeli Air Force at all. Instead,
they had actually been deployed for U .K. air
attacks in Yemen, Iraq and Syria. I imagine that
claiming you are stopping war crimes by painting
a military jet didn't exactly earn much sympathy
from the Ministry of Defense, regardless of where
those planes were actually flying. Not at all.
And if we connect this to the bigger picture,
you have to look at how a sovereign state views
its own security apparatus. Breaking into a private
factory that manufactures drone parts is handled
by the police as criminal damage or aggravated
trespass? Right. Standard police work. but directly
compromising active military aircraft on a highly
secure Royal Air Force base. That fundamentally
alters the state's calculus. The British government...
viewed the Bries -Norton breach as a direct,
unacceptable threat to national security. It
crossed a red line. It crossed a definitive red
line, and it triggered an unprecedented and overwhelming
state response. And that response came swiftly.
On July 5, 2025, just weeks after the base break
-in, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper officially
prescribed Palestine Action as a terrorist group.
They used the Terrorism Act 2000. To understand
the weight of that decision, you have to look
at the history of that act. This is a piece of
legislation. originally designed to combat groups
like the IRA, and it was later adapted for international
terror networks like al -Qaeda and ISIS. Serious
international threats. Exactly. Prescription
is the absolute nuclear option in British counterterrorism
law. It means the group is outlawed entirely.
And the penalties become draconian. Very severe.
Under this act, simply being a member of the
group or even inviting support for it carries
a maximum penalty of up to 14 years in prison.
14 years. And the political mechanics of how
this ban actually passed through parliament are
kind of a master class in legislative maneuvering.
The government used a tactic called bundling.
Right. They didn't present a standalone vote
on banning Palestine action. Exactly. Instead,
they bundled Palestine action into a single.
prescription order alongside two violently extreme
neo -Nazi groups, the Maniacs Murder Cult and
the Russian Imperial Movement. Which essentially
forces members of parliament into a political
trap. Yeah. MPs couldn't vote to debate the merits
of banning Khalistan action individually. They
had to vote to ban all three groups simultaneously
or none of them. One member of the House of Lords
actually openly criticized the move as sneaky.
Because if an MP voted against the ban due to
civil liberty concerns regarding Palestine action.
Their political opponents could easily weaponize
that vote. They could accuse them of voting to
protect violent neo -Nazi organizations. The
pressure to push it through was immense and it
resulted in an overwhelming House of Commons
vote of 385 to 26. And once that ban took effect.
The dragnet was immediate. Immediate. By the
end of November 2025, over 2 ,500 people had
been arrested. And the vast majority of these
individuals weren't anywhere near a military
base or a factory roof. They were swept up simply
for showing public support for a newly banned
organization. The primary mechanism for this
sweeping crackdown was Section 13 of the Terrorism
Act. Section 13 essentially criminalizes the
act of wearing, carrying, or displaying items
that arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual
is a member or supporter of a prescribed group.
And that carries a penalty of up to six months
in prison. Right. And the application of Section
13 resulted in some truly surreal arrests that
really highlight just how wide the net was cast.
On the very day the ban took effect, July 5th,
a group protested in London and 29 people were
immediately arrested. Just for protesting. Yeah,
and one of them was an 83 -year -old retired
priest, Reverend Sue Parfit. Wow. In another
instance, the police arrested a man simply for
wearing a t -shirt that said, Plasticine Action.
Plasticine. Like the play. Exactly. He wore it
to mock the ban, but the police apparently had
to seriously evaluate a children's modeling clay
pun as a potential threat to national security.
That is surreal. He was later de -arrested, but
the chilling effect was very clear. In August,
a screenwriter in Edinburgh was arrested for
wearing a T -shirt that simply read, genocide
in Palestine, time to take action. And civil
liberties groups immediately sounded the alarm
over this. Organizations like Amnesty International,
Liberty. and several U .N. experts argued that
the U .K. was fundamentally misusing counterterrorism
laws. They said the state was conflating disruptive
civil disobedience with actual terrorism. Amnesty
issued statements warning that this represented
an unprecedented legal overreach. Furthermore,
a declassified intelligence report published
in September 2025 surfaced, and it essentially
admitted that the vast majority of the group's
actions, the graffiti, the petty vandalism, the
sit -ins, did not actually meet the legal threshold
of terrorism. A senior counterterrorism researcher
pointed out that relying on minor property damage
to justify a terror ban marked a radical concerning
departure from how these laws had been historically
applied. And while thousands were dealing with
arrests over T -shirts and signs, the human toll
for the activists who actually carried out the
direct action was intensifying in the prison
system. Our source details the harrowing situation
of a group dubbed the Filton 18. Right. The Filton
18. These were activists arrested by counterterror
police following a very severe raid on an Elbit
facility at Aztec West. This was back in August
2024. During that raid, a police officer was
struck with a sledgehammer and severely injured.
But the controversy stemmed from their treatment
within the legal system after the fact. They
were placed in pretrial detention well past the
standard six -month custody limit. Some of these
individuals were facing the prospect of being
held in maximum security conditions for over
a year before even receiving a trial date. Which
is a massive amount of time to be held without
trial. It is. And that prolonged detention led
to a desperate escalation from the activists
themselves. They initiated a hunger strike. The
strike began in November 2025, and it eventually
grew to include up to 10 activists across various
U .K. prisons. The physical and psychological
toll of refusing food in a prison environment
is profound. It really is. Two of those activists,
Heba Marizi and Kamra Ahmed, sustained their
hunger strike for a staggering 73 days. They
finally ended it in mid -January. 2026. 73 days.
That prolonged hunger strike acted as a catalyst
for international solidarity. It drew high profile
attention to the use of the Terrorism Act. Climate
activist Greta Thunberg actually traveled to
London to participate in a protest supporting
the hunger strikers, and she was promptly arrested
by the Metropolitan Police. But perhaps the most
illustrative example of the Terrorism Act's far
reaching implications came from the literary
world. Yes. The Irish author Sally Rooney publicly
pledged her continued support for the group.
She even provided a witness statement for the
court stating she would maintain her support
even if it meant her books were essentially banned
from sale in the UK. Because under the Terrorism
Act, her publishers wouldn't legally be able
to pay her royalties if there was a risk that
the money might go toward financing a prescribed
terror group. Which perfectly demonstrates the
financial and logistical ripple effects of prescription.
It doesn't just neutralize the individuals wielding
sledgehammers. No. It potentially criminalizes
the finances, publishing contracts, and speech
of anyone publicly aligned with their stated
cause. It isolates the group from the rest of
society completely. So what does this all mean
for the legal system? How do the courts reconcile
the state's need for security with the rights
of its citizens? That brings us to February 13,
2026. This is when co -founder Huda Amori challenged
the U .K. government in the high court. She initiated
a judicial review. Which is essentially a legal
mechanism where judges examine whether a government
decision was actually lawful to begin with. And
the lead up to this judicial review was steeped
in procedural drama. Just a week before the hearing
was scheduled, the judge who had initially granted
permission for the appeal was suddenly removed
from the case. No public explanation given. None.
And replaced by a panel of three new judges.
Campaigners were highly suspicious of the swap,
adding to the tension during the hearing itself,
the courtroom was closed to the public. And crucially,
it was closed to Amore's own legal team for an
entire day. This is what's known as a closed
material procedure. It allowed government lawyers
to present secret evidence to the judges. It's
a highly controversial practice in British law
where the defense cannot see or challenge the
evidence being used against them. But despite
the secret evidence and the sudden judge swap,
the outcome sent shockwaves through the government.
The panel of high court judges unanimously ruled
that the government's prescription of Palestine
action as a terrorist organization was, in fact,
unlawful. Unanimous. And this raises an important
question about how the law defines and applies
the concept of proportionality. Right. It is
vital to note here that the judges did not exonerate
the activists. In their detailed ruling, they
explicitly described Palestine Action as an organization
that promotes its political cause through criminality.
They didn't sugarcoat it. Not at all. They even
acknowledged that a very small fraction of its
actions might have technically met the definition
of terrorist action. However, The legal test
hinges on proportionality in human rights. The
judges ruled that dropping a blanket terrorism
ban over the entire network was a disproportionate
interference with their supporters' human rights,
specifically the right to freedom of expression
and freedom of association. The judges drew a
very clear line in the sand regarding how a modern
democracy must handle systemic vandalism. They
pointed out that the individuals who scaled the
factories, who smashed the windows, who damaged
the military planes, they can and absolutely
should be prosecuted under existing standard
criminal laws. Because the state already has
the tools to punish burglary, aggravated trespass
and criminal damage. Exactly. The court essentially
told the government, you do not need to invoke
national security terror bans to prosecute people
for vandalism, no matter how politically motivated
or logistically disruptive that vandalism is.
And the fallout from this ruling is still actively
shaping the legal landscape. The ban provisionally
remains in place purely to allow the government
time to appeal the ruling. But the Metropolitan
Police immediately confirmed they have stopped
arresting people under Section 13 for simply
supporting the group. The financial resources
burned through during this legal battle are really
astonishing. Oh, absolutely. The government spent
seven hundred thousand pounds just defending
the ban during the judicial review and the cost
to the Metropolitan Police to enforce the ban,
managing protests, processing twenty five hundred
arrests and deploying resources over. just a
four -day period exceeded 10 million pounds.
10 million pounds in four days perfectly illustrates
the sheer unsustainability of applying counterterrorism
policing to broad protest movements. It is a
dizzying sequence of events. We have tracked
a localized direct action group that started
with red boiler suits and repurposed fire extinguishers
escalating into a breach of a Royal Air Force
base. The huge escalation. And that breach triggered
a massive national security crisis, leading to
the government utilizing its most severe counterterrorism
legislation, sweeping up thousands of everyday
supporters, sparking 73 -day hunger strikes in
maximum security prisons, and ultimately resulting
in a historic high court defeat that ruled the
state had fundamentally overreached in its definition
of terror. And as we close this analysis, there
is a lingering detail buried in the statistics
of our source material that really demands attention.
During the height of these protests, more people
were charged under Section 13 terrorism offenses,
again, mostly for wearing T -shirts or carrying
signs, than were charged under that same section
during the entire two -decade global war on terror.
That is staggering. It forces us to ask a difficult
question about the future. As modern protest
movements increasingly move away from the traditional
model of simply marching with signs and instead
actively embrace direct economic and logistical
sabotage to force corporate or political change,
how will the law adapt? Will Western democracies
be forced to invent a completely new legal category
that sits somewhere between aggravated trespass
and international terrorism? How will societies
in the future draw the line between highly disruptive
civil disobedience and genuine terror? It is
a legal frontier we are all going to have to
watch unfold because the tactics are clearly
changing faster than the laws can keep up. Thank
you for joining us on this deep dive. We hope
it helped you understand the incredibly complex
mechanics of the story. Keep questioning the
world around you. Keep looking for the facts
beneath the headlines and we will catch you next
time.