{"id":90020,"date":"2026-02-13T11:46:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T11:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=90020"},"modified":"2026-02-13T11:46:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T11:46:57","slug":"if-we-had-a-wise-home-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/02\/13\/if-we-had-a-wise-home-secretary\/","title":{"rendered":"If we had a wise Home Secretary"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have to share this from The Guardian<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The co-founder of\u00a0Palestine Action\u00a0has won a legal challenge to the home secretary\u2019s decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws.<\/p>\n

The proscription of\u00a0Palestine Action, which categorised it alongside the likes of Islamic State, was the first of a direct action protest group and attracted widespread condemnation as well as a civil disobedience campaign defying the ban, during which more than 2,000 people have been arrested.<\/p>\n

From 5 July last year, being a member of \u2013 or showing support for \u2013 the group became an offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.<\/p>\n

Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action,\u00a0challenged the ban at a trial\u00a0in the high court in London, part of which\u00a0was held in secret\u00a0and which concluded in December.<\/p>\n

On Friday, three judges, led by the president of the king\u2019s bench division, Dame Victoria Sharp, ruled the decision to proscribe the group was unlawful but the ban on the group would remain to give the government time to appeal.<\/p>\n

They allowed the challenge on two of four grounds, namely that there was \u201ca very significant interference\u201d with the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association and that the then home secretary Yvette Cooper\u2019s decision to proscribe Palestine Action was not consistent with her own policy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Let's just note the keywords:<\/p>\n

The decision to proscribe the group was unlawful.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My emphasis added.<\/p>\n

The person who acted unlawfully was the Home Secretary, not the protestors.<\/p>\n

I am not exonerating actual criminal actions, if they happened. Those undertaking such action know the risk they are taking. But we are not talking about that, and Yvette Cooper, when suggesting that her actions were justified by a \"terrorism\" threat, was always completely absurd. What she made punishable by 14 years in prison was free speech condemning genocide, which her government supported, as Wes Streeting has now effectively acknowledged, although it seems he did nothing to stop it.<\/p>\n

A wise Home Secretary would back down now.<\/p>\n

We do not have a wise Home Secretary. Expect an appeal.<\/p>\n

A wise Prime Minister would now say they take note, and consider how his government might both uphold free speech and stop genocide (which is continuing).<\/p>\n

We do not have a wise Prime Minister.<\/p>\n

The corruption in Whitehall goes on as a result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have to share this from The Guardian: The co-founder of\u00a0Palestine Action\u00a0has won a legal challenge to the home secretary\u2019s decision to ban the group
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,16,118,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-ethics","category-labour","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90021,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90020\/revisions\/90021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}