The UK Just Crossed a Dangerous Line—And Starmer Drew It

Right, so welcome to Britain folks, where splashing a military plane with red paint is now a terror offence worthy of proscription—but arming a foreign power accused of genocide is just foreign policy as usual. Where Keir Starmer, once the human rights lawyer defending RAF base intruders in the name of peace back in 2003, he now runs a government seemingly dictated to by the Israeli embassy. If you thought Orwell was writing fiction, think again, but perhaps even he might have thought this was all too far fetched to ever be possible and yet here we are. This isn’t satire—it’s Westminster in 2025.
In the Starmer era, the UK's anti-terrorism powers are no longer reserved for those who plant bombs or take lives, but for those who interrupt genocide logistics with a tin full of paint and a couple of crowbars. Palestine Action—a direct action group protesting Britain’s complicity in Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza. Not content with prosecuting their actions under criminal law, the government now wants to ban them entirely, brand them as terrorists, not just punishing the crime, though criminal actions as part of protest are a lengthy part of British history, just being a member would be banned, acting to silence even the idea that resistance to genocide might be justified and yet if this had happened 20 years ago, Starmer might have been in court defending them.
Right, so as we know the UK government under Keir Starmer appears to be preparing to designate the direct-action protest group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. The implications of such a move reach far beyond a debate about protest tactics or foreign policy; they cut to the heart of what kind of country Britain wants to be, and more alarmingly, who is truly influencing its decision-making at the highest levels, who is shaping the type of country Britain is, because it doesn’t appear to be us.
Palestine Action, a grassroots pro-Palestine protest group, has gained notoriety for direct actions targeting UK complicity in Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza. One of their recent actions involved breaking into RAF Brize Norton and spraying red paint on military aircraft, symbolising blood and UK complicity in what they, and many others globally, describe as genocide in Gaza. For this, they now face the chilling threat of being classified as terrorists.
Starmer's plans to proscribe Palestine Action seem increasingly murky as further details emerge, raising deeply troubling questions about foreign influence, state overreach, and sheer political hypocrisy. Reports suggest that information about the case, including potentially sensitive data about protestors, has been shared with the Israeli government. A FOI request uncovered an email from the Attorney General’s Office to the Israeli embassy, containing contact details for both the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the Counter Terrorism Command (SO15), the unit investigating 28 Palestine Action activists, including the “Filton 18” and the “Instro 10.”
What reason, exactly, does the Israeli government have to be so deeply involved in UK domestic counterterrorism investigations? And why is the UK government seemingly so eager to comply?
To add to this troubling international entanglement, the Board of Deputies of British Jews—a group widely regarded as a de facto proxy for the Israeli state—has allegedly lobbied the government for Palestine Action’s proscription and celebrated reports suggesting this may come to pass. A statement from Phil Rosenberg, the BoD’s President said:
‘We welcome the reported decision to proscribe Palestine Action. Their actions over recent months had become increasingly egregious – targeting Jewish charities and communal sites, desecrating statues, and encouraging acts of violence and vandalism.
The forced break-in and sabotage at an RAF base was rightly the final straw. This group has been allowed to operate with impunity for far too long. Proscription is a necessary and proportionate step to protect public safety and uphold the rule of law.’
While the Board presents itself as a representative of British Jews – a great many British Jews utterly refute this incidentally - many Jewish critics argue it represents the interests of Israel’s government. One notable example of this came from former South African MP and arms trade expert, Andrew Feinstein, who stood against Starmer in last year’s General Election, who has said in response to the BoD that:
‘If only u were at all concerned about an actual genocide rather than being outraged by those who are opposed to genocide. As the son of a Holocaust survivor I know that Never Again meant for all humanity. U don’t represent most British Jews. U sure as hell don’t represent me.’
The view of many British and non British Jews alike I am quite certain of. This intervention obviously risks blurring the line between domestic policy and foreign lobbying to a dangerous degree as we’re now apparently seeing.
The Starmer administration has also levelled accusations that Palestine Action is being influenced by foreign actors as part of its decision to seek proscription over mere prosecution. This irony is particularly grotesque. For while Starmer’s government frets about supposed overseas influences on a protest group, it is evidently quite content to bow to the preferences of Israel and its allies, so the question on everyone’s lips, which becomes frankly inescapable all things considered is: is Keir Starmer governing for Britain or at the behest of a foreign power?
At the same time, the Metropolitan Police—already notorious for political bias and inconsistent protest policing—has it seems and to little surprise in my view, aligned itself with this authoritarian lurch. Met Police Chief Mark Rowley has released a statement expressing open “frustration” at a planned protest happening today, not yet happened at time of writing, in support of Palestine Action, despite the group not even being proscribed yet, so we are perfectly entitled to do so. Rowley’s statement somehow manages to both condemn the protest whilst claiming to support the right to protest, he really is a star, the relevant bit of his far too long piece of drivel reading:
‘I’m sure many people will be as shocked and frustrated as I am to see a protest taking place tomorrow in support of Palestine Action.
“This is an organised extremist criminal group, whose proscription as terrorists is being actively considered. Members are alleged to have caused millions of pounds of criminal damage, assaulted a police officer with a sledgehammer and last week claimed responsibility for breaking into an airbase and damaging aircraft. Multiple members of the group are awaiting trial accused of serious offences.
“The right to protest is essential and we will always defend it, but actions in support of such a group go beyond what most would see as legitimate protest. Thousands of people attend protests of a different character every week without clashing with the law or with the police. The criminal charges faced by Palestine Action members, in contrast, represent a form of extremism that I believe the overwhelming majority of the public rejects.’
That Rowley, Britain’s top police officer, would condemn the right of British citizens to protest government action before any legal designation has occurred speaks volumes. It is an insult to the concept of due process, civil liberties, and basic democratic norms. Just shut up man.
Rowley’s overt hostility suggests the police are not neutral enforcers of the law, but rather active agents in a political campaign against dissent. This is further evidenced by growing cooperation between UK counterterrorism forces and the Israeli state, signalling what could reasonably be called collusion. If democratic protest is criminalised before the crime is even officially designated, where does that leave civil rights in Britain?
Even the mainstream media, long deferential to authority on matters of national security, God knows they parrot the propaganda, but on this some are beginning to express unease. The Guardian just published an opinion piece, too much for them to take a direct stand, its just one of their scribblers, in this case Sally Rooney, has warned that branding Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation sets a perilous precedent. Once terrorism legislation is used to outlaw protest, it is only a matter of time before it is turned against any form of meaningful resistance. Rooney stated that she can only say that she admires and supports Palestine Action wholeheartedly and will continue to, whether that becomes a terrorist offence or not. It should be noted though, that Rooney is quite safe to do that, she lives in Ireland. Nonetheless, her criticism reflects a broader concern among the populace that Britain's democracy is hollowing itself out under Starmer’s watch.
One of the darkest ironies of this saga though, the real glaring hypocrisy, which would be a great middle name for Starmer, hypocrisy, though Rodney does fit the plonker better, is Starmer’s own history as a human rights lawyer. In 2003, he successfully defended a member of the so-called Fairford Five—anti-war protesters who broke into RAF Fairford to sabotage US B-52 bombers headed for Iraq. They actually did more damage. They smashed instrument panels, fuel tankers, support vehicle windscreens - which were needed to supply the B-52 bombers due to fly that day, and cut brake cables on 15 bomb trailers. They also reportedly took grinding paste with them with the intent to put it in the fuel tanks. Their action, like Palestine Action’s, was direct action protest. Back then, Starmer celebrated such actions as legitimate protest. Now, as Prime Minister, he seeks to brand similar protestors as terrorists. What changed? It wasn’t the tactics, it wasn’t the moral cause. What changed was Starmer’s political ambition—and his sudden embrace of a disturbingly authoritarian form of governance and a far too strong allegiance to a genocidal apartheid state.
And the hypocrisy deepens even further. The Labour leader who once promised in his fourth leadership pledge to “promote peace and human rights” is now overseeing what amounts to the criminalisation of moral conscience. Starmer’s support for Israel, even as it lays siege to Gaza and provokes conflict with Iran, is both politically motivated and ethically indefensible, but for him its just another day at work, its par for the course.
Starmer's government has also come under pressure to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a move urged by the same pro-Israel lobbying voices behind the Palestine Action crackdown. These demands follow Iranian resistance and self defence to Israeli aggression— Israel has a right to defend itself even as it was the instigator, whilst Iran does not despite having been struck first? International law says otherwise, but that’s becoming a bigger and bigger joke as nobody stands up for it when it comes to Israel. Are all these terror designations being made based on evidence and UK security needs, or are they simply favour-trading with the Israeli state and its advocates in Britain?
The UK’s ongoing material and political support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, including arms exports, intelligence cooperation, and diplomatic cover, makes this more than just a legal matter. It is a moral reckoning. Britain is now deeply complicit in that genocide. And those who dare to act against this complicity—like the activists of Palestine Action—are being silenced not through debate or legal argument, but via the blunt weapon of terrorism legislation.
The protest happening today, against the planned proscription of Palestine Action, is thus not just a show of solidarity. It is a stand for the very principles of democracy and civil liberty. Its participants are risking intimidation and even arrest to defend the idea that in a free society, political protest—especially protest against state violence—must never be equated with terrorism.
To designate Palestine Action as a terrorist group is not to punish them for specific crimes. That can already be done through existing criminal law. It is to make it illegal to even support their cause, to be a member, or to express solidarity. It is to remove an entire political viewpoint from the realm of legal debate.
Civil disobedience has long been the engine of progress—from the Suffragettes to the anti-Apartheid movement, to the anti-Iraq War protests of the early 2000s. To suggest that direct action is incompatible with democratic protest is to rewrite history. Lawbreaking, when nonviolent and rooted in conscience, has always had a place in the fight for justice. That’s what makes Starmer’s two-faced stance so galling: he knows this. He once argued it in court and got one of those Fairford Five participants cleared.
Starmer’s eagerness to now suppress dissent under the guise of counterterrorism should alarm not only activists, but anyone who cares about the future of democratic rights in this country. That this move appears to have been coordinated in part with a foreign government—one that is itself under investigation for war crimes, who’s leader has an arrest warrant out against him—should horrify every citizen.
We must ask, loudly and persistently: who is running this country? Is it our elected government, accountable to the British people? Or is it foreign interests and unaccountable institutions acting behind closed doors?
Palestine Action may be the immediate target, but the implications are far broader. If a government can declare dissent to be terrorism on the basis of politics, not violence, then any of us could be next. This moment demands clarity, courage, and solidarity, our right to protest, a human right as that is, is at stake here. The people of Britain must not only protest against this authoritarian drift—they must demand a return to the democratic principles upon which their society supposedly rests.
Because if Keir Starmer’s Labour government can proscribe a protest group at the behest of foreign powers, then we no longer live in a democracy. We live in something far more dangerous.
For more on Starmer’s efforts to silence dissent in deference to Israel over Palestine Action and more about what they actually did, which absolutely isn’t terrorism at all, do check out this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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