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Yvette Cooper has defended the arrest of more than 500 people for holding signs supporting Palestine Action.
The home secretary said protesters over the weekend may have been objecting to Palestine Action being proscribed as a terror group because they “don’t know the full nature of this organisation”.
Ms Cooper said that could be due to reporting restrictions on court hearings “while serious prosecutions are underway”.
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A total of 532 people were arrested on suspicion of supporting a proscribed organisation contrary to Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Around half of them (259) were aged 60 and above – including almost 100 people who were in their 70s.
The Met Police said it was the largest number of arrests it had made related to a single operation in at least the past decade.
A woman is dragged away by police officers after attending the Palestine Action protest in Parliament Square. Pic: PA
Ms Cooper added: “Proscription is not about protest around Palestine or Gaza, where we had tens of thousands of people protesting lawfully just this weekend about some of the horrendous events that we’ve seen in the Middle East.”
She said members of Palestine Action have carried out violent attacks, causing injuries and involving weapons and smoke bombs, “causing panic among innocent people” and major criminal damage against national security infrastructure.
The home secretary added there had been “clear security assessments and advice” before Palestine Action was proscribed as a terror organisation in July.
Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori said: “Yvette Cooper and No 10’s claim that Palestine Action is a violent organisation is false and defamatory.
“Spraying red paint on war planes is not terrorism. Disrupting Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems by trespassing on their sites in Britain is not terrorism.”
Former government lawyer Tim Crosland, now spokesman for Defend Our Juries, which organised the weekend’s protest, told Sky News: “Yvette Cooper is so politically invested she’s going to continue to defend the arrests of people simply protesting.
“There will be more people at the next action, the police will be so aggrieved that they’re having to arrest people holding placards protesting against the atrocities in Gaza while they’re having budget cuts.”
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Will volume of arrests at protests overwhelm police?
Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman said Palestine Action was proscribed based on “strong security advice” following assessments from a “wide range” of experts across government, the police and security services.
“Those assessments were very clear, this is not a non-violent organisation,” he said.
He added Palestine Action had committed “three separate acts of terrorism” but could not go into more detail as further evidence had been provided in a closed court setting due to “ongoing national security reasons”.
The view above Parliament Square. Pic: PA
Human rights group Amnesty International said it was “deeply concerned” about the arrests this weekend.
Its UK chief executive, Sacha Deshmukh, said: “The protesters in Parliament Square were not inciting violence and it is entirely disproportionate to the point of absurdity to be treating them as terrorists.
“Instead of criminalising peaceful demonstrators, the government should be focusing on taking immediate and unequivocal action to put a stop to Israel’s genocide and ending any risk of UK complicity in it.”
A hostile environment era deportation policy for criminals is being expanded by the Labour government as it continues its migration crackdown.
The government wants to go further in extraditing foreign offenders before they have a chance to appeal by including more countries in the existing scheme.
Offenders that have a human right appeal rejected will get offshored, and further appeals will then get heard from abroad.
It follows the government announcing on Saturday that it wants to deport criminals as soon as they are sentenced.
The “deport now, appeal later” policy was first introduced when Baroness Theresa May was home secretary in 2014 as part of the Conservative government’s hostile environment policy to try and reduce migration.
It saw hundreds of people returned to a handful of countries like Kenya and Jamaica under Section 94B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, added in via amendment.
In 2017, a Supreme Court effectively stopped the policy from being used after it was challenged on the grounds that appealing from abroad was not compliant with human rights.
However, in 2023, then home secretary Suella Braverman announced she was restarting the policy after providing more facilities abroad for people to lodge their appeals.
Now, the current government says it is expanding the partnership from eight countries to 23.
Previously, offenders were being returned to Finland, Nigeria, Estonia, Albania, Belize, Mauritius, Tanzania and Kosovo for remote hearings.
Angola, Australia, Botswana, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Latvia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Uganda and Zambia are the countries being added – with the government wanting to include more.
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Theresa May’s hostile environment policy proved controversial. Pic: PA
The Home Office claims this is the “the government’s latest tool in its comprehensive approach to scaling up our ability to remove foreign criminals”, touting 5,200 removals of foreign offenders since July 2024 – an increase of 14% compared with the year before.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Those who commit crimes in our country cannot be allowed to manipulate the system, which is why we are restoring control and sending a clear message that our laws must be respected and will be enforced.”
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: “We are leading diplomatic efforts to increase the number of countries where foreign criminals can be swiftly returned, and if they want to appeal, they can do so safely from their home country.
“Under this scheme, we’re investing in international partnerships that uphold our security and make our streets safer.”
Both ministers opposed the hostile environment policy when in opposition.
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In 2015, Sir Keir Starmer had questioned whether such a policy was workable – saying in-person appeals were the norm for 200 years and had been a “highly effective way of resolving differences”.
He also raised concerns about the impact on children if parents were deported and then returned after a successful appeal.
In today’s announcement, the prime minister’s administration said it wanted to prevent people from “gaming the system” and clamp down on people staying in the UK for “months or years” while appeals are heard.
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