The UK Just Lost Control Of Its Terror Laws

Right, so they said Palestine Action was an Iranian front. They said it with a straight face. They said it in Parliament. They said it in the papers. Nobody showed any evidence, but the statement moved anyway, because that’s how these things work when the right people want them to. Then Private Eye reported that the Iran line may not have come from intelligence at all, but from a PR shop working for Elbit Systems UK, the weapons manufacturer that Palestine Action were of course actually targeting. CMS Strategic, named in that report, denied it outright. Categorically untrue. End of statement. And yet the timing sits there, with all the subtlety of a brick: a protest group hammering at an arms company, a story about Iran arriving late and awfully convenient, and a government that didn’t wait for proof before reaching for the terrorism laws of course.
Right, so back on the 23, the Home Secretary stood in the House of Commons and stated that she intended to proscribe Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000. There was no intelligence assessment placed before the House at that time. There was no dossier released to MPs. The statement was made as policy declaration, not as presentation of evidence.
The Draft Proscription Order was laid before Parliament a week later. The order was listed as Statutory Instrument 2025/803. The language of the instrument named Palestine Action as an organisation to be added to the list of proscribed groups. The document did not contain an annex of evidential material, so once again, we all had to take the governments word for this, but the legal effect of the instrument was to of course criminalise membership, support, or association.
The House of Commons approved the order on 2 July which passed. The debate transcript shows the Iran link being referenced by members during the session though. Again, no intelligence report was tabled. The vote proceeded without a closed session, without a briefing from the Intelligence and Security Committee, and without disclosure of the basis for the Iran claim.
The House of Lords approved the order on 3 July. The approval followed the same pattern. Reference to Iran. No evidence. No questioning of the origin of that claim. The procedural path from announcement to approval ran without interruption.
The proscription came into force on 5 July. From that time, Palestine Action was treated in law as a terrorist organisation. Individuals associated with the network became liable to arrest and prosecution for activities that had previously been charged as criminal damage, trespass, or public order offences, because of course, they’ve never harmed anyone, failing the very definition of terror.
There was no new intelligence disclosed at the moment the law changed. There was only the change.
Elbit Systems UK is the British subsidiary of Elbit Systems, the Israeli arms manufacturer that PA targeted. Elbit Systems supplies weapons, surveillance systems and munitions to the Israeli Ministry of Defence. Elbit Systems UK operates as part of this supply chain inside the United Kingdom. The company presents itself as a domestic defence contractor. Its corporate materials list programmes for the British military, including work on drones and battlefield communication systems. Its registered sites include production facilities, research offices, testing grounds and corporate headquarters located across the UK.
The relationship between Elbit Systems UK and the Israeli armed forces is documented in the company’s own commercial language. Elbit Systems is a principal supplier of drone platforms and targeting systems used by the Israeli military. Elbit Systems UK is not presented as a separate or independent enterprise. It is a subsidiary under the ownership and strategic direction of Elbit Systems.
The company maintains a headquarters presence in London. It has operated production facilities in areas including Shenstone, Leicester, and Oldham. One of these sites, in Oldham, was sold in 2022 after a period of sustained protest and operational disruption.
The existence of these sites created a domestic logistical presence for an Israeli weapons manufacturer inside the UK. They created points of physical access. They created supply chain assets that could be interrupted. They created visible locations associated with the transfer of military technology.
Palestine Action oriented itself toward these sites.
In April 2023, Palestine Action announced a sustained escalation against the Leicester factory operated as UAV Tactical Systems.
In May 2024, activists again reached the Leicester site. Roof access. Arrests. Temporary shutdown. The factory remained the point of pressure.
In August 2024, the Bristol site at Aztec West was breached. Injuries were recorded by police and on-site staff. Arrests followed.
In October 2024, actions moved onto enabling firms. Allianz offices were hit in the UK. Red paint. Occupations. The link stated was insurance cover that underwrites Elbit’s ability to operate.
That same month, financial stress surfaced at an Elbit-linked engine site in Shenstone, who made engines for drones, with losses reported for the end of 2023 after years of profit and after repeated blockades and occupations.
In March of this year, the Bristol site was hit again. A cherry-picker at the frontage. Second-floor windows smashed. Red paint thrown. Multiple arrests. Charges followed.
On 1 July, Elbit’s London headquarters was blockaded. The frontage was painted. The entrance was sealed, this action landing the day before the Commons vote.
In September of this year, the Bristol site at Aztec West closed. The facility was found deserted with a security guard on duty. Reporting linked the retreat to sustained pressure and rising security costs, all despite PA being proscribed by this point.
This is the run-in.
On 23 June though, The Times ran the line that Palestine Action was being investigated for links to Iran. The piece cited unnamed officials. The wording framed alleged funding and proxies. The same day, the Home Secretary made her announcement in the Commons though. What a coincidence.
The next day, The Spectator repeated the claim. The language tracked the briefing. The premise remained the same. No evidence was published.
That same day this Iran line entered the Lords chamber. Eric Pickles spoke of the IRGC as the people paying for Palestine Action. No assessment was tabled. No annex was produced.
On 25 June, the cascade continued in the nationals. The Telegraph carried an “Iran-linked” framing. The premise took hold across the print cycle. The sourcing stayed anonymous.
On 26 June, the line surfaced at the despatch box. Greg Smith pressed the Prime Minister on the IRGC and the timing on Palestine Action. The two tracks appeared in one exchange. No assessment was disclosed.
On 2 July, the Commons approved the order. On 3 July, the Lords approved. The Iran framing had already entered both chambers. No intelligence report was placed on the record though.
On 9 July, the sequence was reconstructed in print. Briefing to The Times. Repetition across Spectator, Telegraph, Mail and broadcasters. Parliamentary repetition. No disclosed assessment to anchor the claim.
There was no intelligence report placed before Parliament to support the claim that Palestine Action was funded by Iran. The Commons received no classified briefing. The Intelligence and Security Committee did not confirm having received one. The Lords did not request one. The Home Office did not publish one. The proscription proceeded without the evidential basis being shown.
The statement in The Times was treated as though it reflected a verified assessment. The wording in Parliament reflected the same claim. The claim travelled from media to legislature without stopping at verification. The authority of the state was applied to the claim, but the evidence was not.
The vote in the Commons did not include an evidential annex. The peers who approved the order did not ask for one. The Terrorism Act’s requirement for reasonable belief was treated as satisfied, but the reasoning remained undisclosed. The change in law did not follow the disclosure of proof. The change in law followed the repetition of a line.
What was known at the time was the repetition. What was not known at the time was the evidence. The vote went ahead anyway.
The allegation exists. It is denied. It is not required to establish the core problem.
Now Private Eye comes into the story. They reported that a witness said Georgia Pickering, the managing director of CMS Strategic, had claimed credit for placing the Iran funding line in The Times. The report stated that CMS Strategic represents Elbit Systems UK. It is a lobbying firm. The allegation was that the narrative identifying Palestine Action with Iran originated in PR work commissioned to protect Elbit’s interests. CMS Strategic responded to the reporting. The company said the allegation was categorically untrue. The record contains both the allegation and the denial. Neither has been tested in court, perhaps we don’t have long to wait with the judicial review kicking off on the 25th of this month.
But this allegation also circulated publicly, though of course not in the mainstream media. It moved from Private Eye to The Canary, Middle East Eye and Novara Media. Declassified UK had already covered the story back in July as it happens too. All of these outlets cited the same originating claim and all reported the denial. There is no additional material at this point in the record. There is no documentary evidence released to confirm or disprove the account attributed to the witness. The status of the allegation remains unresolved.
But the proscription does not depend on the allegation. The parliamentary statements do not reference CMS Strategic. The government did not cite CMS Strategic when advancing the Iran link. The legal record does not contain the allegation. The proscription stands on the media reports, the parliamentary repetition and the absence of disclosed intelligence.
The alignment is visible without the allegation. A protest movement targeted a private defence contractor. The state criminalised the protest movement. The justification relied on a claim that originated in media briefings and has still not been substantiated with evidence. The contractor remained operational. The movement became illegal. The allegation sits to one side of this. But the alignment of all of this doesn’t. I’m not a big fan of coincidences in politics.
The proscription took effect on 5 July. From that point, Palestine Action became a terrorist organisation in law. Association became an offence. Support became an offence. Participation became an offence. The legal shift redrew the boundary between protest and crime.
Elbit Systems UK remained a licensed defence contractor operating inside the United Kingdom. The company continued to supply equipment to the Israeli military. The commercial relationship continued. The state did not restrict Elbit’s operations. The state restricted the movement that tried to stop them.
The Iran claim entered the system through media briefings attributed to unnamed officials. It passed into Parliament without an intelligence assessment being disclosed. It passed into law without evidential disclosure to the legislature that authorised it. The proscription relied on the authority of national security language without the substantiation that would normally accompany it.
A private arms manufacturer was under sustained operational and reputational pressure. A protest movement was making that pressure material. The state criminalised the protest movement. The claim used to justify the criminalisation arrived without proof.
This was not a dispute over tactics. This was not a disagreement about methods. This was the state using counter-terror powers to defend the operating freedom of a private weapons company. The power of proscription was not used to disrupt a threat. It was used to end a campaign.
The alignment is the point. A corporation under pressure. A government with the power to remove the pressure. A narrative that arrived without evidence. A decision that did not wait for evidence. The structure held. The movement was removed. The company remained.
The state did not ask for proof because proof was never the point. The claim was enough. The machinery moved on the claim. A counter-terror power was applied to end a campaign against a weapons manufacturer operating on British soil. The law followed the interest. The justification arrived after. The story about Iran did the work that evidence would have been required to do. The state acted with certainty where there was none. The result stands in the structure: the company remains protected; the protest movement is criminalised. This is how authority behaves when it is aligned with industry. I will be very interested to see if this comes up during the judicial review, because surely it must?
Evidentiary cover ups are one thing for this Starmer government, but they aren’t always possible despite denials. Demands that the UK BDS Israel have gone in the opposite direction, as the numbers, unlike Keir Starmer, never lie and trade with the genocidal blue and white state has actually increased, not gone down, so get all the details of that story by staying with the channel here.
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