Palestine Action ban ruling set for Supreme Court appeal

Final stand — Founder Huda Ammori has won permission to challenge the Court of Appeal’s verdict, which upheld the group’s proscription as a ‘terror organisation’.

The legal battle over the government’s decision to ban Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation looks set to head to the UK’s highest court after the Supreme Court granted the group permission to appeal.

The direct action group’s co-founder, Huda Ammori, will challenge a Court of Appeal ruling that upheld the proscription of Palestine Action, setting up a final legal battle with the Home Office later this autumn.

Palestine Action was banned under terrorism laws in July 2025 after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged military aircraft in protest against Israel’s war – which has been deemed a genocide by the United Nations and several leading scholars and human rights groups – in Gaza. Since the ban came into force, belonging to or expressing support for Palestine Action has become a criminal offence carrying a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

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Last month, the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the government, finding that then home secretary Yvette Cooper had acted lawfully in proscribing the group. Delivering the judgment, Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said the decision represented a “justified and proportionate interference with individual rights”.

The Supreme Court’s decision does not overturn the ban, but means its legality will now be examined by the UK’s highest court for the first time. A hearing is expected in the final months of this year.

It marks the latest chapter in a lengthy legal challenge. Earlier this year, the High Court found that the proscription was unlawful, concluding that only a limited number of Palestine Action's activities could be characterised as terrorism and questioning whether the threshold for banning the group had been met. That judgement was later reversed by the Court of Appeal.

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The appeal comes as police continue to enforce the ban. On Thursday, the Metropolitan Police arrested 77 people at a demonstration outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court, where hundreds had gathered in support of Palestine Action.

Responding to the decision, Ammori said the arrests outside the court highlighted what she describes as a widening crackdown on expressions of solidarity with Palestinians. 

“We will continue to fight this proscription all the way to the Supreme Court and, if necessary, to the European Court of Human Rights,” she says, describing the ban as “one of the most extreme attacks on free speech and the right to protest in modern British history”.

Ella Glossop is Huck’s social editor. Follow her on Bluesky.

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