Britain’s Double Standard on Rights and Resistance

Author: Emma Nelson

December 3, 2025

A protest in support of the activist group Palestine Action in London on Monday. The government said it would formally submit a ban to Parliament next week. June 23, 2025 [Image credit: Henry Nicholls/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images]

Outside of the Labour Party conference this September, dozens gathered brandishing signs colored with bright text reading “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” They stood peacefully outside the venue, chanting and calling attention to Britain’s complicity in the arms trade with Israel. Yet, police arrested 66 people that day under counter-terrorism powers, many of them elderly and one carried away in his wheelchair. They were taken in for their alleged support of the group Palestine Action, which had been proscribed by the UK government two months prior under the Terrorism Act of 2000. At the same time, Labour delegates were inside the hall voting to recognize Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide and to call for an end to arms sales. The contrast between those outside being detained under counter-terrorism laws and those inside voting to condemn the violence they opposed revealed a quiet but telling contradiction in how the UK understands democracy.

Palestine Action is a group known for its disruptions of factories and offices linked to arms production, using demonstrations such as paint strikes and blockades to halt operations. It has targeted sites that manufacture parts for F-35 fighter jets used in Israeli airstrikes across Gaza. These vehicles are largely built in the United States but dependent on UK-made parts, which account for about fifteen percent of each plane. In July, the Home Secretary banned Palestine Action following an incident where members broke into a military airfield and spray-painted two aircrafts, alongside previous events of property damage. They claimed the group’s campaign of property damage posed a serious threat to the UK’s national security infrastructure.

International law experts and human rights organizations have described this designation to be a misuse of counter-terrorism powers. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has condemned the classification as inordinate, saying that “It limits the rights of many people involved with and supportive of Palestine Action who have not themselves engaged in any underlying criminal activity but rather exercised their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, as association.” The Council of Europe commissioner for human rights Michael O’Flaherty echoes these sentiments, saying that the current legal framework allows for “excessive limits on freedom of assembly and expression.”

The ban effectively turns any protest in relation to Palestine Action, even non-violent and non-destructive demonstrations, into a criminal offence. Publicly expressing support for Palestine Action now falls under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, a law intended to combat extreme violence. Since the ban took effect, over five hundred people have been arrested for affiliations with or support for Palestine Action, many at peaceful protests. In one case, a Kent police officer wrongly detained a woman holding a “Free Gaza” sign, claiming this sounded as support for terrorism, and later apologized and paid charges for the arrest The most recent arrests happened outside the Labour conference, where protesters were charged with supporting terrorism for opposing the very arms trade their own representatives were debating as a likely breach of international humanitarian law.

The breach is not just theoretical. The UK continues to export components to Israel, supplying their fighter jets and missile systems despite evidence that these weapons are used to bombard civilian areas. This year, ministers suspended around 30 of the more than 350 UK weapons export licenses, but the suspension did not include pieces required for F-35 jets. Here, the UK’s commercial and strategic defence interests appear to override its legal responsibilities under the UN Genocide Convention, which requires states to act when there is a serious risk of genocide rather than after it has been proven.

The UK has long positioned itself as a global advocate for human rights and the rules-based international order. The state’s human rights credibility depends on the principle that it both upholds international law abroad and protects freedom of speech and dissent at home. Both of these factors have been called into question in recent times. The state is actively enabling the export of weapons with a clear risk of misuse while criminalizing the protest of that very trade. When counter-terrorism laws are used to protect commercial interests from public challenge, the issue becomes less about legality and more about what kind of democracy remains when opposition itself is treated as a crime.

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Glossary

• Complicity – Being involved in or knowing of an illegal activity or wrongdoing

• Counter-terrorism powers – Legal tools that allow the government and police to prevent or respond to terrorism

• Democracy – A system of government in which power is vested in the people, who have the ability to freely elect their representatives

• Genocide – The targeting of a specific group with intent to erase it, not just through violence but by destroying the conditions that let it survive.

• Home Secretary – The government minister in charge of domestic security, policing, and immigration in the UK

• Labour Party – One of the main political parties in the UK, representing the center-left

• Palestine Action – A British activist group that carries out direct action protests against companies linked to arms production for Israel

• Proscribe – A ban on the grounds that a group or action represents a threat to national security

• Terrorism Act of 2000 – The main UK law that defines terrorism and allows the government to ban groups and arrest those accused of supporting them

• Terrorism – The use of violence or intimidation to send a political message, aiming to shape behaviour or perceptions by creating fear.