Breaking down the Court of Appeal judgment on Palestine Action’s proscription

What’s happened so far with the Palestine Action case?

In June 2025, members of direct-action protest group Palestine Action broke into RAF base Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and spray-painted two military planes red. The following month, then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper proscribed the group as a terrorist organisation. The ban has made it a terror offence to belong to or express support for the group, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, challenged the lawfulness of the proscription at the High Court in November 2025. Liberty intervened alongside Amnesty International UK in the case, arguing that proscription was a disproportionate use of counter-terror powers.

What was the High Court’s judgment on the proscription of Palestine Action?

In February 2026, the High Court ruled that the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful. There were three key points in the judgment:

• The Home Secretary did not follow her own policy, which the Court found to exist so that “not all organisations that meet the concerned in terrorism requirement should be proscribed”.
• That, especially because Palestine Action is a direct-action protest group, proscription involved significant interference with the rights to freedom of expression and association by restricting actions including peaceful protest “under the Palestine Action banner”.
• Proscription was not justifiable because only three of Palestine Action’s hundreds of activities met the statutory definition of terrorism, and the ordinary criminal law was available to deal with those incidents, including instances of violence.

The High Court ordered the proscription decision be quashed, but following the Government’s decision to appeal, this was suspended until the case was heard by the Court of Appeal.

What was the Court of Appeal’s judgment on the Palestine Action proscription?

On 15 June 2026, the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the Government, meaning that it has decided Palestine Action’s proscription was lawful and proportionate.

The Court of Appeal’s ruling was critical of the High Court’s decision on several key points:

• The High Court’s judgment was based on a misinterpretation of the Home Secretary’s policy on proscription. Its purpose is not to constrain her ability to proscribe, and she followed her policy lawfully.
• The High Court did not adequately account for the fact that Palestine Action’s activities were escalating, which was highly relevant for the Home Secretary’s decision about whether proscription was proportionate.
• The High Court did not give proper deference to the Home Secretary’s wide discretion in matters of national security.
• The ordinary criminal law was insufficient to deal with Palestine Action because it operated covertly. Any impact criminal prosecutions would have on individuals in the organisation were unlikely to directly disrupt the organisation as a whole.

You can read the judgment here.

What happens next with Palestine Action?

The Court of Appeal’s decision means that Palestine Action remain a proscribed organisation. The decision by the High Court to quash the proscription has now been set aside. That means that expressing support for Palestine Action remains a terror offence, and that ongoing prosecutions will continue.

The co-founder of Palestine Action has a month to decide whether or not to lodge an appeal. Initially, the Court of Appeal decides whether to grant permission for an appeal, but if it refuses, there is a further opportunity to ask the Supreme Court for permission to appeal. That process is likely to take several months. If permission is granted by either the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court, the appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court at a later date.

Why did Liberty intervene in the Palestine Action case?

Liberty has been involved in campaigns and legal cases concerning disruptive protest and the risks posed by counter-terror legislation since we were founded in 1934. Our work in both these areas has been impacted by the decision to proscribe Palestine Action.

We intervened in the case on the proscription of Palestine Action because we believe the UK’s definition of terrorism is so wide-ranging it captures behaviour most people would never consider terrorism.  We wanted to provide evidence to the Court about the impact the decision has had on civil society organisations like Liberty. We also made legal arguments, arguing that Article 10 ECHR protects direct action tactics, and that labelling forms of disruptive protest as terrorist has a chilling effect on protest and campaigning.

You can read Liberty’s submissions to the High Court here and to the Court of Appeal here.

Wider concerns about the UK’s counter-terror laws

This judgment raises serious concerns about the breadth of the Home Secretary’s discretion when it comes to matters of national security and how much deference the courts have to her authority.

It paves the way for current and future governments to use counter terror powers against non-terrorist groups, as we have seen in other countries to silence activists, minorities and opponents.

This case has already had, and will continue to have, a chilling effect on protest and free speech – leaving many people too afraid to protest or say the wrong thing. People must be able to speak out and protest without fear of being labelled a terrorist and arrested.

It’s still unclear when direct action that targets property wouldn’t fall under the terrorism definition, and at what point it’s proportionate to target these groups using counter-terror powers. Even the court said it was unusual to proscribe an organisation whose primary objective is to cause damage to property.

We want to see these lines clarified by amending the terrorism definition itself so that it only catches the kinds of actions and behaviour it actually seeks to target. We can do this by specifying what kind of property damage amounts to terrorism: when it creates a serious risk to life, national security, or the health and safety of the public or a section of the public, or when it uses arson, explosives, or firearms.

This would enable us to safeguard the public and national security, while protecting peoples’ rights and preventing misuse of our counter-terror laws. When it’s not clear what counts as terrorism, public trust collapses and without trust, counter-terror laws simply won’t work.