00:00Madam Deputy Speaker, 21 years ago, a human rights barrister stood in court and defended an activist who broke into RAF Fairford, trying to disable a bomber to prevent war crimes in Iraq.
00:12That case became a landmark in lawful, non-violent direct action against an illegal war. That barrister is now our Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, KC.
00:21He argued that it was not terrorism, but conscience.
00:24Fast forward to 20 June 2025. Two Palestine action activists entered RAF Bryce Norton and sprayed red paint, red paint, not fire, on aircraft linked to surveillance flights over Gaza.
00:37Instead of prosecuting them for criminal damage, which is what normally is done, the Home Secretary is using the Terrorism Act to prescribe them as a terrorist group.
00:45Madam Deputy Speaker, this is an unprecedented and dangerous overreach of the state.
00:50Never before in Britain has it been a crime to simply support a group.
00:55This order lumps a non-violent network of students, nurses, teachers, firefighters and peace campaigners, ordinary people, my constituents and yours, with neo-Nazi militias and mass casualty cults.
01:07Palestine actions, real crime, we have to be clear, is shutting down Elbit system sites that arm the Israeli military.
01:15Its true offence has been audacious enough to expose the blood-soaked ties between this government and the genocidal Israeli apartheid state and its war machine.
01:24So let us be clear, to equate a spray can of paint with a suicide bomb isn't just absurd, it is grotesque.
01:31So let us be clear, to equate a spray can of paint with a gun.
