Chambers’ Dictionary defines terrorism as “an organized system of violence and intimidation, especially for political ends, and the state of fear and submission caused by this”. The Terrorism Act 2000 has a rather wider definition. Section 1 includes action designed to influence the government, and includes serious damage to property.
That means that Yvette Cooper was almost certainly within her powers in asking Parliament to proscribe Palestine Action; but the actions of that group are not within the everyday understanding of the concept of terrorism. When I learned of the events at Brize Norton, my reaction was not “I am terrified” but “Whatever was the RAF playing at, that a group of peaceniks could hop over the perimeter fence, walk up to several million pounds’ worth of warplane, and trash it?”
And while proscribing the organisation was probably lawful, it doesn’t seem to have been remotely sensible. Proscription has led to some entirely predictable over-reach, exemplified by Jon Farley’s arrest for holding up a copy of a Private Eye cartoon, and Roger Cauthery being refused admission to the Royal Albert Hall for wearing a small lapel pin bearing the Palestinian flag. And it has also led to an entirely predictable embarrassment for the Metropolitan Police as hundreds of eminently respectable people very publicly hold up placards proclaiming “I OPPOSE GENOCIDE…” The dilemma is that either you arrest all these people and look ridiculous, or you don’t and acknowledge that the law is a meaningless nonsense.
The Terrorism Act 2000 was another in a long line of badly thought out pieces of legislation seeking to address terrorist threats. The first of them, of course, was the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974, the first achievement of which was the framing of the Guildford Four. The 2000 Act hasn’t caused too much difficulty up to now because it has generally been applied with good sense. What appears to have been an angry reaction to what was admittedly a serious and reprehensible piece of criminality did not involve good sense.
Interviewing Jonathan Porritt on Newsnight, Victoria Derbyshire rather sententiously suggested that you can’t pick and choose what laws to obey. It’s understandable that history, and the BBC, appears to have forgotten the post-war saga of identity cards. These were introduced as an emergency measure at the outbreak of World War 2. The post-war Labour Government “omitted” to repeal the relevant legislation, and the practice grew up of the Police routinely demanding the production of identity cards whenever they stopped someone. One Harry Willcock, an unrepentant Liberal member of the Awkward Squad, was stopped for speeding and refused “on principle” to produce his identity card. On his appeal from the inevitable conviction before the Magistrates, Lord Goddard, no wet liberal (and indeed, in my book, possibly one of the worst Chief Justices of all time) said:
To use Acts of Parliament, passed for particular purposes during war, in times when the war is past, except that technically a state of war exists, tends to turn law-abiding subjects into lawbreakers, which is a most undesirable state of affairs. Further, in this country we have always prided ourselves on the good feeling that exists between the police and the public and such action tends to make the people resentful of the acts of the police and inclines them to obstruct the police instead of to assist them….
And, though Willcock’s conviction was upheld, he was not ordered to pay costs, and Goddard made it clear that any future bench of magistrates obliged to convict a citizen of failing to produce an identity card should grant an absolute discharge. Identity cards were scrapped the following year.
If one replaces the reference to war with a reference to the threat from IRA terrorism, Goddard’s words make much sense in today’s climate. And certainly, the observation that the knee-jerk proscription of Palestine Action has tended “to turn law-abiding subjects into lawbreakers” is very much in point.
I am a great admirer of Lady Carr, the present Chief Justice, but I shall be pleasantly surprised if she feels able to follow the example of her unpleasant predecessor. It would do no harm, though, for Liberal Democrat spokesmen to remind people of a forgotten Liberal hero.
* Neil Hickman is a retired District Judge and a Liberal Democrat member in Mid-Norfolk. His book Despotism Renewed? – Lord Hewart Unburied (2024) looks at the story of Harry Willcock and much else. He was a member of the Labour Party for a while (resigning when Starmer whipped his MPs to back Johnson’s Brexit), and increasingly wonders why.
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13 Comments
I fear that “probably lawful, it doesn’t seem to have been remotely sensible” may be a description that will probably have to be pressed into service again and again as long as Labour stick with their current responses to Reform UK. Many thanks to Neil Hickman for a very sensible piece. Good to have another reminder of Harry Wilcock’s place in our history – a man who had greatness thrust upon him!
@Neil ..’rather sententiously suggested that you can’t pick and choose what laws to obey.’
Nothing sententious about it. Because what is the point of having laws if they are optional?
If people could choose to break laws they objected to without consequences, they’d be just as free to choose to disobey ‘good’ laws as ‘bad’ ones.
Protesters in the past who have chosen to break what they saw as bad laws have done so with the courage to accept the consequences.
The Brize Norton incident does identify that the RAF security was definately not up to scratch. An embarrassed MOD could ‘have it in’ for Palestine Action as a result. The organisation has shown weaknesses in security so why not give them medals for their service to the state!!
It may well be true that £7m worth of damage was done at Brize Norton, but has a clear explanation of the price been given? As Guardian letter pages readers may know, someone has rashly offered to remove the red paint for a mere £5m. On a similar point, what exact form has the violence against people taken, as opposed to damage to property? Yvette Cooper’s position might make more sense to the people who elected her if she put her cards on the table.
@nigel – If only the Brize Norton people had neatly spray painted WE COULD HAVE BEEN RUSSIANS, YOU KNOW and legged it.
But while I may sympathise with them over Gaza, I think that what they actually did was indefensible.
@Andy – My understanding is that what was done involved the application of a crowbar to the works of a jet engine. I can well believe the repair bill being enormous
@Neil Hickman
“My understanding is that what was done involved the application of a crowbar to the works of a jet engine….”
What’s your evidence for your understanding?
@Nonconformistradical
Among other sources, the BBC – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3dp5158720o – and the UK Defence Journal – https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/palestine-group-attacks-raf-base-damages-voyager-aircraft/. Palestine Action themselves referred to “decommissioning” two aircraft.
I agree with Neil’s article. The proscriprition was probably lawful but very silly. The state has a whole arsenal of weapons to throw at Palestine Action without making them martyrs. Now Cooper and co have put the police in the invidious position of arresting blind and elderly grannies for holding placards. One of her more idiotic junior ministers being interviewed for Today described the polce as being brave n delaing with these OAP’s. !
Video isn’t clear enough to show exactly what damage was done.
Whatever was done I reckon that the perpetrators did the country a favour in showing up the abysmal security. They should never have been able to get anywhere near these aircraft or even get through the perimter fence without being accosted
I don’t believe PA has done us any favours. They haven’t only shown us where security was perhaps lacking: Thanks to PA, the Russians and everyone else who might want to do us harm also know. And that means that resources that could have gone into actual defence capabilities (or into helping Ukraine) will now have to be diverted into massively beefed up security at Brize Norton (and perhaps other air bases).
The thing is – while in an ideal World, you’d have top notch security everywhere making it completely impossible to break into anywhere sensitive, in practice that’s unaffordable and unrealistic. More realistically, in a democracy, security is always going to rely to some extent on prioritising resources at the things most under direct threat, while also relying on (most of) your citizens to behave sensibly and responsibly, and also on your enemies not knowing where your security weaknesses are. So, yeah, thanks for nothing PA!
There’s certainly a debate to be had about whether actually proscribing PA was a proportionate response – or even an appropriate response in a democracy. But I wish people would stop making excuses for them.
@Simon R – I’d be highly confident that the Russians and others were already fully aware of the lax security, and are probably annoyed that PA have highlighted it and embarrassed the Government into doing something about it.
The bigger problem is that the UK armed forces are under-strength compared even to their reduced manpower targets, and have a recruitment and retention crisis, so I wonder who is going to be providing any extra security? Private contractors?
@Simon R – “ And that means that resources that could have gone into actual defence capabilities (or into helping Ukraine) will now have to be diverted into massively beefed up security at Brize Norton (and perhaps other air bases).”
Yet another example of how decades of spend thrift conservative governments have short changed us. Given the ease with which Russian agents have entered and left the country, committed murder etc. I suspect the only people who were unaware of the lack of security (I suspect most commercial UK airports have better security) were the British public. Proscribing PA is just a fig leaf to prevent political embarrassment and avoiding doing anything constructive.
I wonder if Microsoft also uses their Chinese staff to manage the UK government’s IT, just as it has been doing for the US military for at least the last 10 years…