Court in a Conundrum

With dissent comes sacrifice, without dissent comes autocracy.

On 5 July 2025 Palestine Action was proscribed by the UK government. From that moment on you could be charged under the Terrorism Act for showing support for that group. The proscription was controversial because it was the first time a UK direct-action protest group had been categorised as a terrorist organisation. Back in 1999 when the Terrorism Act was being debated in parliament concerns were raised that this could happen. Despite assurances that this wouldn’t happen, in 2025 it did. I made a short film, Requiem For Protest, with audio from the debate in 1999 and overlaid it with current day imagery of one of the “Lift The Ban” protests. We did not heed the warnings in 1999 and in the film we witness the consequences of that, a quarter of a century later. As a result of the proscription and the “Lift The Ban” protests, the courts are now faced with a conundrum: how to process thousands of people under terrorism charges in a judicial system already under immense pressure amid a backlog of cases that means people are having to wait years to have their cases heard.

This week there is a judicial review taking place at the High Court to give a judgment on whether the proscription of Palestine Action was legal or not. The outcome of that judgement will have an impact on the thousands of people who in recent months have been arrested and charged for showing support for Palestine Action by holding banners in a public space displaying the words, “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”.

Reportedly more than 2100 people had been arrested under section 13 of the act for taking part in the peaceful “Lift The Ban” action. That number will have increased in recent days as more actions have taken place. If found guilty, the maximum penalty is a 6 month prison sentence. They may just receive a fine. They would always have a criminal record for a terrorism offence. There has been a lot of reporting about these arrests but little about what it has meant for the people in the weeks and months after their arrests, so that is the topic I have chosen for this week’s Substack. For this article I am solely focusing on the arrests under Section 13. For those arrested under section 12, and for the Filton 24 who were arrested for taking direct action, it is a different story.

The very first set of people arrested for the “Lift The Ban” action under Section 13 were initially given harsh bail conditions including “sleep at home” orders and bans from entering parts of the country. Those restrictions have since been eased. Broadly speaking, all the “Lift The Ban” Section 13 arrestees are allowed to go about their day to day unhindered while they await their trials. Sounds reasonable given that clearly none of these people are a real and present danger to society. But, there are nevertheless some insidious ramifications lurking beneath.

I’ve spoken to two people who have already experienced real world consequences for their dissent. My first conversation was with a woman whose name I will change to Heather to protect her daughter’s identity. Heather herself has no issue in owning her open act of dissent and being named for it, but there could be unintended consequences for her daughter. This was not the first time Heather had been arrested for nonviolent protest action. At her plea hearing for her arrest under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act she pled not guilty and told the judge “I am not a terrorist.” Her court date was set for May 2026. The principle of being innocent until proven guilty is a concept all UK citizens have grown up with, and so Heather thought nothing more of traveling around freely while awaiting trial. Her daughter, married to an American, lives in the US and Heather and her partner had booked a trip to visit her and a friend there who was gravely unwell. They were traveling via Iceland and so needed to check in on two planes. Heather’s partner had also taken part in the “Lift The Ban” actions but had not, at that point, been formally charged. They had followed advice from her daughter to take a burner phone with them because of well publicised stories of people being stopped at the US border and detained or denied entry because of information found on their phones that the Trump regime would disapprove of. They cruised through check-in at the airport in the UK and made it to Iceland, but things fell apart when they tried to board the plane in Iceland. Heather’s ESTA visa had been revoked by the US government. Her partner could fly, but not her. It was in this moment that the significance of having a terrorism charge sunk in. She told me she felt shocked and dazed when it happened. There were tears. The trip was abandoned and they both knew it was unlikely they would ever see their sick friend again. Heather has since told me that their friend has now passed away. I asked Heather, if she could turn back the clock, would she do the action again? Her answer came after a long thoughtful pause. Probably not. Her daughter had always been very supportive of her activism but had asked her not to cross a line which would mean she could no longer visit her. When she had to phone her daughter to tell her that the line she promised she wouldn’t cross had been crossed, you can imagine the heartbreak. Even if the judge rules the proscription of Palestine Action unlawful at the upcoming judicial review, will the red flag against her name remain on record? Will she ever be able to get an ESTA visa again? A European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) is being introduced for travel from the UK to Europe in 2026, will it operate like an ESTA and also end up preventing “Lift The Ban” action takers from traveling outside our little island?

I also spoke to Ruth who too had been charged for taking part in a “Lift The Ban” action. She had promised to take her children, young adults, on a holiday to Biarritz in South West France. She had decided to go by coach to Paris and take the train on from there to the South. She was feeling quite pleased with herself and laughs when she tells me how she boasted to her friends about how cheap the coach tickets were. When the family arrived at the ferry terminal and got off the coach she spotted a rubbish bin. Remembering she had left a banana skin under her seat she got back onto the coach to retrieve it with the intention of throwing it away. The border guards who had been standing near said bin had spotted her and thought her behaviour suspicious — when they saw her getting back onto the coach they thought she was trying to avoid them. They pulled her aside and checked her records. They found the terrorism charge. With a terrorism charge you are not allowed to do a “no comment” interview. They can also compel you to hand over your mobile phone and give them the access code. If you don’t, then you risk arrest and detention. The same happened to Tommy Robinson when he aroused suspicion traveling through the border at the Channel Tunnel. Let it be noted that the similarities between Tommy Robinson and Ruth end there! Unlike Robinson, Ruth did give them her access code, something she feels annoyed about now. Had she not she would have been arrested and the situation would have spiraled. While she was being interviewed for three hours her children were taken to a family room, and she made a point of telling me that the border guards treated them well. They were laughing with them, including some “oh mum!” jokes. The border guards were looking for evidence of drugs and bombs, they didn’t care about Ruth’s protest charges. When they found nothing of concern she was released but by then the coach had long since departed and they had to find their way back to London. The next day Ruth had to shell out a fortune for three last minute Eurostar tickets to get her and her daughters to Paris in time for the train to Biarritz. As she went through customs at the Eurostar terminal Ruth was careful not to pick up any banana skins. She was not stopped and they made their train and the holiday went ahead as planned but it was a sobering and expensive experience.

I asked Ruth if she regretted her decision to take part in the “Lift The Ban” action and she was quite clear in her mind that she did not. “When you are protesting against ecocide and genocide why shouldn’t it involve some form of sacrifice?” she told me. She referenced her faith and as a person of faith the concept of sacrifice is one that sits comfortably with her. She could also understand why Heather had answered in the opposite, her circumstances were different.

Ruth’s response made me think about what we are willing to sacrifice to stand up to injustice and to the support causes we believe in. There is a silent majority of people who want our governments to take more climate action, there is a silent majority of people who are horrified by the genocide in Gaza, there is a silent majority of people who want to defend our democratic rights, but the people who are willing to stick their necks out and make a significant sacrifice by taking action, are but a few. Whether the civil rights movement, the suffragettes, the anti-apartheid movement, the gay liberation front, Gandhi’s Salt March, the Resistance in WW2, (and the list goes on), throughout history there have been people willing to stick their necks out for all of us and make great sacrifices. They are brave people. They are special people. They are ordinary, but extraordinary people. Without them we would not have the rights we have today.

In October there was a hearing for the first 28 people arrested with Judge Snow in the chair. They all pleaded not guilty. At that hearing Judge Snow devised a plan for hearing these cases and determined that they will be tried in batches of five at the rate of ten people a day. That means each of the accused will be given 36 minutes to defend themselves, that includes the time spent by the prosecution and the defence to cross examine them. One of the defendants, Deborah Wilde, told the court: “I don’t think I can get a fair trial on the [time] limit that you have allocated to me. I would like to seek leave to appeal.” Snow told her that this would not be legally possible. “I’m satisfied that the time is sufficient,” he said. “I’m not allowing more time for the trial. Your only remedy is the High Court.” Taking this to the High Court is beyond most ordinary people’s means.

I wondered if there could be one mass hearing, a kind of “class action” case, but this is not possible because of an important principle in law that every case must be heard individually. The same was true of the Post Office scandal cases. It took an act of parliament to allow for the mass quashing of those convictions. So the “Lift The Ban” defendants will have just 36 minutes in front of this judge and they will not be able to be tried by a jury of their peers. Jury trial would have opened up the possibility of an acquittal on the basis of conscience. When Julian Assange found himself in front of Judge Snow it did not end well. Judge Snow is quoted in the media for calling him a narcissist. “His assertion that he has not had a fair hearing is laughable. And his behaviour is that of a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interests.” We cannot predict how he will rule in these cases but if his comments about Assange are anything to go by, it does not bode well for them.

There is a lot in the balance at the judicial review this week. There will no doubt be many more legal machinations that follow the outcome. Meanwhile thousands of protesters must sit with the uncertainty of their terrorism charges hanging over them. They all took part in the action knowing that there could be consequences, but it does not mean that they will be enjoying having this hanging over their heads.

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By way of an update on my feature film work, I am coming to the end of a 5 month UK tour with screenings of The Line We Crossed. In that time, there have been more than 70 screenings and 90% of them have been accompanied by Q&As. I am eternally grateful to the participants in the film who have so generously given up their time to take part in those Q&As both with and without me. There are more screenings in the pipeline and they will resume in 2026. We are now planning the streaming release of the film and would encourage anyone who wants to be kept up to date with release dates and new screenings to sign up to our newsletter.

2026 will see the UK release of our film The Conspiracists. The film has been screening in the US during 2025 and last week was shown at The Society for Visual Anthropoligy Film and Media Festival in New Orleans. Author and participant in the film, Noelle Cook, was able to attend the festival to represent the film and she reported back a lot of interest in it. As MAGA ideology is starting to spread into the UK, 2026 feels like the right time to release the film in the UK.

I am back out in the field filming for our documentary with the working title “The Humanitarians”. It is an investigative film that digs deep into the gnarly and complex issue of asylum and immigration that is driving us apart. I began filming it in September 2022 and continued to film throughout 2023. Returning to the field to film updates, what is startling is how much more difficult it has become to film for this documentary. That is because of the ratcheting up in the level of hostility towards not only asylum seekers, but also humanitarian groups trying to support them. If you would like to support this film donations to Page75 Productions are most gratefully received.

Finally, If you have not yet had an opportunity to listen to my podcast with Jonathon Porritt I would encourage you to do so. This was the first podcast I have produced on the theme of democractic backsliding, the subject area of my films. It was an enjoyable experience recording it and the encouraging feedback has inspired me to do some more in the future.