The spray-painting of aircraft at an RAF base by a pro-Palestinian group would not provide the sole legal justification for banning it, according to a former justice secretary.
The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, is expected to move to proscribe Palestine Action in the coming days after an incident on Friday at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.
Jonathan Reynolds, the trade secretary, said on Sunday it was the fourth attack by the group on key UK defence assets and that those interfering over a period of time with defence infrastructure should expect “a very robust response”.
“I would also say those people do no service to the Palestinian cause, which is a noble one,” Reynolds said in an interview on the BBC.
But reports of a move to proscribe the group, which would in effect label it as a terrorist organisation, have been met with criticism from some, including MPs, Amnesty International and the former Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf.
A Thames Valley police investigation into the incident has been taken over by counter-terrorism police, while the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it was in the process of reviewing security at its bases. Cooper is preparing a written ministerial statement that will be placed before parliament on Monday.
Palestine Action released a short video on Friday morning showing two people driving electric scooters unimpeded inside the airbase at night and spraying two military planes.
The group said it had targeted RAF Voyager aircraft used for transport and refuelling, and that “activists have interrupted Britain’s direct participation in the commission of genocide and war crimes across the Middle East”.
The incident is the latest action in recent years by the group, but it is also a particularly embarrassing breach of MoD security at a site that holds transport planes used by the king and prime minister.
The former justice secretary Charlie Falconer said on Sunday that the “sort of demonstration” that took place at the RAF would not justify proscription, “so there must be something else that I don’t know about”.
Asked whether the group’s actions were “commensurate with the need to proscribe an organisation”, Lord Falconer told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme: “I am not aware of what Palestine Action has done beyond the painting of things on the planes in Brize Norton. They may have done other things I didn’t know.
“I think the question will probably not be what we know about them publicly, but there would need to be something that was known by those who look at these sorts of things that we don’t know about, because they got into the airbase, which might suggest they’ve got some degree of ability to make them dangerous.”
Criticism came from quarters including the MP and former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who said on X: “Prosecuting Palestine Action protestors for criminal damage for paint spraying at the airbase would be expected but putting them on a par with mass killers like Jihadis & Boko Haram & proscribing doesn’t seem appropriate & not what the counter-terrorism laws were introduced for.”
During a protest march in London on Saturday, Yousaf accused the UK government of “abusing” anti-terror laws against Palestine Action. He later said on X: “If the UK Government believes those protesting against the atrocities in Gaza are terrorists, but those killing children should be supported and provided with weapons, then this Government has not only lost its way, it has lost its conscience.”
Amnesty International UK said it was “deeply concerned at the use of counter-terrorism powers to target protest groups”.
Palestine Action was founded in 2020 by Huda Ammori, whose father is Palestinian, and Richard Barnard, a leftwing activist. The organisation, which focuses its campaigns on multinational arms dealers and corporate banks, recently targeted a factory in Shenstone, Staffordshire, claiming it made drones for the Israeli army.
The home secretary has been the focus of lobbying by groups pushing for Palestine Action to be banned. The Campaign Against Antisemitism said it recently wrote to her calling for the proscription of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000 and providing her with a dossier on the group.