Home Office to challenge Palestine Action ruling. What now?

Posted: 26th February 2026

It was announced yesterday that UK home secretary Shabana Mahmood has been granted permission to challenge a High Court ruling which found the ban on Palestine Action unlawful.

Earlier this month, a three-panel judge found the proscription was “disproportionate” and a “very significant interference with the right to freedom of speech and… assembly”.

The news was celebrated within the pro-Palestine movement and beyond.

Indeed, the Home Office had thrown the book at Palestine Action, and there were well-founded suspicions that the establishment judges would ultimately fall on the side of the government.

But the ruling also contained much to be concerned about.

The judges accepted that three of Palestine Action’s activities met the statutory threshold for terrorism based on “serious property damage”.

That is a low bar indeed, and was a concern to UN special rapporteur on human rights Ben Saul who  intervened in the process.

He told the court there was a “consensus” in international law that “terrorism” was defined as “acts intended to cause death, serious injury or hostage taking, in order to intimidate a population or compel a government… to do or to abstain from doing any act”.

The UK government was, he suggested, therefore employing a much too broad definition of “terrorism” in order to clamp down on civil disobedience.

But in their ruling, the judges expressed doubts that any such consensus “exists” and argued that, in any case, the Home Office was entitled to rely on its own definitions.

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So what happens now?

Until the appeal process has concluded, the ban on Palestine Action will remain in place, and all of those charged with allegedly supporting the group will remain in legal limbo.

There is currently no date set for the appeal.

But when it does happen, it seems likely that the Home Office will contest the ruling on the basis that the court accepted that Palestine Action had engaged in acts of terrorism even as it also found that the threshold to be defined as a terrorist organisation had not been met.

Indeed, as human rights group Liberty has observed, the court left it unclear “when direct action that targets property wouldn’t fall under the terror definition”, thus making it uncertain “at what point it would become proportionate to target groups using counter-terror powers”.

In deciding to challenge the ruling, moreover, the Home Office will inevitably squander even more public funds on legal fees. The police have already spent £10m tackling protests against the ban, and the Home Office has spent £700,000 pursuing it through the courts.

All in all, it may well transpire that the government’s attempt to ban Palestine Action has caused more financial damage than the group itself.

John McEvoy

Chief Reporter
Declassified UK