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“Repeal anti-union laws”: Fire Brigades Union motion to TUC Congress

The Fire Brigades Union has submitted the following motion to TUC Congress 2024 (8-11 September, Brighton). Its perspective – combining a focus on holding the Labour government to account on its pre-election commitments with the need to push further for repeal of all anti-union laws – is similar to the one we set out here.

Congress reiterates its opposition to the Minimum Service Levels (MSLs) legislation, which attempts to outlaw effective strike action in key unionised sectors of the workforce. Congress deplores the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: Fire and Rescue Services) (England) Regulations 2024, which came into force on 21 March 2024.

Congress condemns these regulations, which state that fire and rescue control rooms and other firefighters must function during industrial action “as if it were a non-strike day”.

Congress further condemns these regulations, which state that 73 per cent of fire appliances usually deployable on a non-strike day must be deployable on days when industrial action is taking place.

Congress applauds the FBU’s campaign to persuade the devolved administrations, local fire authorities and the fire employers to refuse to issue work notices for MSLs.

Congress notes the Labour Party’s 2024 general election manifesto committed to implementing ‘Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay: Delivering a New Deal for Working People’ in full – introducing legislation within 100 days.

Congress further notes that Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay committed to repealing the Trade Union Act 2016, the Minimum Service Levels (Strikes) Act and other anti-union legislation.

Congress recommits to the TUC’s longstanding policy for the repeal of all anti-union laws and for positive legal rights for trade unions.

Congress demands that the new Westminster government immediately repeal MSLs, the Trade Union Act 2016 and take urgent action to remove other anti-union laws.

Featured

Covid-19 crisis: Protect the right to strike!

Already in the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve seen examples of workers taking industrial action, often to improve workplace safety. Outsourced cleaners, caterers, and porters at Lewisham Hospital walked out to demand the payment unpaid wages. Workers in Lambeth libraries took action to demand the closure of their workplaces. Postal workers in Bridgend struck, after bosses refuse to revise shift patterns and staffing levels to ensure safe distancing in the workplace.

Continue reading “Covid-19 crisis: Protect the right to strike!”
Featured

Resist the Tories’ new anti-strike law!

In his government’s first Queen’s Speech, Boris Johnson has announced that he plans to introduce new laws to restrict strikes. There could be little clearer indication of the class loyalties of his government than this.

Continue reading “Resist the Tories’ new anti-strike law!”

“The law against solidarity action must be repealed”

This is the speech given by British Medical Association (BMA) deputy chair Emma Runswick at the 1 May rally in Manchester at which the Green Party launched its new Workers’ Charter. (Emma pictured above; photo from the Fire Brigades Union.) She explains, through the lens of doctors’ and health workers’ struggles, why fighting to scrap the bans on solidarity action and on action for demands wider than narrow “trade disputes” is so crucial.

The GP Workers’ Charter commits to: “Free our unions. Scrap all anti-union and anti-strike laws introduced since 1979. Bring in strong legal rights to strike, picket and protest, including solidarity action and action for political and social causes.”

The BMA is a non-partisan trade union and professional association, currently in disputes across the UK.

For us, the Employment Rights Act brings positive and long overdue reforms to trade union regulation. But I can’t gush about it. The Employment Rights Act is not good enough to protect and promote workers’ rights

It doesn’t even go as far as the Labour Party manifesto did, and some elements have been deliberately delayed to reduce impact on their government and our ability to fight their bad decision making. The shift to online balloting and removal of thresholds has been held back until at least August, over two years since their election possibly later. We must demand the thresholds are abolished immediately, definitely no later than August.

In my time, I want to mention just a couple of the changes – amongst many – beyond the existing Employment Rights Act that we need to see and how they would impact doctors and health workers.

First, the law against Secondary Action, or Solidarity Action needs to be repealed. Secondary action is taken by workers in support of a dispute involving another group of workers.

In the NHS, which is increasingly outsourced, it may be necessary for workers from different employers to collaborate in order to secure safe working conditions. Currently, because of the ban on solidarity action, each group has to construct a different dispute against each employer – this is time consuming and ridiculous, especially when the policies and actions of one employer – for example of workers in the laboratory – affects all of us across a hospital system.

In the private sector, we have agencies employing doctors from abroad – often West Africa – creating systems of multiple jeopardy to prevent doctors from speaking up. If a doctor like my colleague Fiya becomes a troublemaker to them by complaining, as she did about a clinical problem, or her colleagues did about the quality of housing provided to them, or about racism at work, these agencies control and can threaten everything: they don’t just pay their wages, they are also a doctor’s landlord, professional registration and visa status. Challenge through the Employment Tribunal system is slow, slower than a Home Office deportation threat. More settled and empowered workers like me should be able to take action to protect those who are most exploited and at risk of abuse – currently this is prohibited by laws stopping secondary action. 

In the NHS, we have some groups of doctors who never want to take action due to moral and professional obligations to patients – for example my colleagues who work with patients with fast-progressing cancers. Those who do non-emergency work in and beyond the health service should be able to take action to ensure good conditions for those who cannot stop working.

In the 1980s, this happened – significant strike action by all sorts of workers supported nurses’ pay disputes.

Secondary action is banned because it works, because it makes us stronger by building solidarity between us, because it would enable us to solve all of these problems. Any party on the side of workers needs to repeal the ban.

The next key issue is the current restriction of trade disputes as only being with an “employer” and only on specific issues. Doctors are affected at work by lots of organisations that aren’t their direct employer. Resident doctors like me, most of us on three year fixed-term contracts, get the worst of this:

  • Recruitment bodies, not employers, conduct interviews and allocate jobs.
  • Statutory education health bodies conduct annual reviews of competency and can end our employment.
  • “Host” NHS Trusts are the actual places we work.
  • Royal Colleges run our exams which govern our progression, with regular serious errors like giving incorrect results.

None of those bodies are our employer. None can be subject to a trade dispute or a strike. Most can’t be held accountable via legal routes either – trust me we have looked. They are just unaccountable, despite having control over our lives. It is set up that way deliberately. The thousands of doctors currently being “let go” at the end of fixed term contracts because of NHS funding cuts have hardly any recourse. The legislation holds us back.

And that is before we get to action which would currently be unlawful on wider politics: Palantir’s involvement in the NHS, public health issues, climate.

We are facing so many threats to our health in this country. The burden of avoidable disease is killing us, and overrunning the NHS. Doctors and health workers want a healthy population. So do all of us. Yet we can only hold disputes on a tiny list of workplace issues.

The law has always sought to limit workers’ ability to fight for our interests against bosses. It’s an uneven playing field.

Even under the new law, strike mandates will still require annual ballots. But no company has to seek shareholder permission to underpay workers, no government has to seek referendum permission to make cuts.

The commitment to free our unions is a powerful commitment to even the odds, to free us to organise ourselves to win better lives – at work and in the wider world. All trade unionists must push for that.

Online meeting: The Employment Rights Act — Shortcomings and Opportunities

Join Troublemakers At Work and Free Our Unions for an online meeting at 7pm on Tuesday 5 May.

What opportunities does the Employment Rights Act present, and what do we still need to fight for?

Speakers (all in a personal capacity):

  • Rhiannon Lockley (UCU)
  • Ruth Cashman (UNISON)
  • Ian Allinson (Unite)

Click here to register to attend.

Motion for UNISON NDC on the Employment Rights Act and trade union rights

Free Our Unions supporters have drafted the following motion for UNISON National Delegate Conference 2026 (for more on the conference including deadlines and processes etc, see here.) Although there are some UNISON-specific bits (eg the reference to “Labour Link”), the bulk of it can be easily used or adapted for other unions.

If your branch is putting this motion or a version of it forward, let us know: freeourunions@gmail.com

After the ERA passes: step up our fight!

Conference notes:
1. That the impact of significant parts of the Employment Rights Act will be shaped by an implementation process over the coming year, with great need for ongoing campaigning to maximise gains made. As of 18 January 2026, for instance, there is no date for scrapping the 50% ballot turnout threshold, while eg specifics on unions’ right of access to workplaces will be determined through a consultation.
2. That while much therefore remains to be determined, the legislation itself – measured against the demands of our movement and the needs of workers – contain very significant weaknesses on:
• Repeal of anti-strike restrictions;
• Unfair dismissal rights for all;
• Preventing fire and rehire / replace;
• Preventing zero hours contracts;
• Union access to workplaces;
• Processes for union recognition;
• “Collective bargaining” in social care and for school support staff (which the Act says clearly is not actual collective bargaining).
3. That the ERA does nothing on:
• Reinstatement for workers dismissed unfairly;
• Creating a single worker status to prevent use of fake self-employment to deny rights;
• Promoting collective bargaining throughout the economy.

Conference believes:
1. That rather than thinking “job done”, the labour movement must fight for the ERA’s provisions to be implemented quickly and in the strongest possible forms, while of course making maximum use of openings created.
2. That we must simultaneously demand a second, much stronger Act addressing the problems left or created by the 2025 Act’s inadequacies.
3. Crucially, workers need the right to strike / take industrial action by a process, at times and for demands of their own choosing, including in solidarity with any other workers and for broader social and political goals, and to picket freely.
4. In the urgent need for:
a) In line with TUC Congress policy, repeal of all anti-union / strike legislation, back to 1979, and replacement with a positive legal charter of workers’ rights, with strong rights to strike and picket. This must include the right to solidarity action with any group of workers, crucial for effective workers’ struggle and more necessary than ever in the era of outsourcing, etc.
b) Strong measures to establish and promote collective bargaining rights and structures, including for sectoral bargaining, throughout the economy.
c) A strong single worker status and other measures tackling use of fake self-employment to deny rights, and two-tier / multi-tier workforces.

Conference calls on the NEC to:
1. Campaign vigorously around implementation of the Employment Rights Act 2025.
2. Launch active campaigning for a second Employment Rights Act, addressing all issues noted above and with particular emphasis on these three central areas.
3. Encourage branches to campaign on both these fronts, providing materials to help do so.
4. Work with other unions on campaigning for a second ERA, to repeal all anti-union laws and advance workers’ rights more broadly; also working with campaign groups including Institute of Employment Rights, Free Our Unions and Campaign for Trade Union Freedom.
5. Work with Labour Link to campaign on this in the Labour Party, including with other Labour-affiliated unions.

(499 words)

The Employment Rights Act and the right to strike

Comment by a Free Our Unions supporter

Good news that the Employment Rights Bill has finally passed, against resistance from the House of Lords, the Tories and Reform UK, and employers.

The Employment Rights Act, in its final legislative form – a lot in terms of implementation will depend on a series of consultations – is in multiple areas a step forward. It is also much weakened not only from Labour’s original “New Deal for Working People” in 2021, but from what the party promised during the general election.

Much has rightly been written and said on many different aspects of this weakening, notably in terms of dealing with bogus self-employment, fire and rehire/replace, promoting collective bargaining, and unfair dismissal rights. In terms of the right to strike specifically, the main problem is not so much watering down, but that what even the 2021 original promised was thoroughly inadequate.

More on that below. But first there is an immediate problem which the labour movement needs to take up.

When will the 50% threshold go?

In terms of the right to strike, the ERA means:

• Repeal of the 2023 minimum service levels law (already in practice a dead letter, but obviously now harder to revive in any form);
• Reducing the notice period for industrial action from fourteen days to ten (but not to seven as before 2016);
• Increasing the maximum length of mandate from an industrial action vote from six months to twelve;
• Introduction of some forms of electronic and workplace-based balloting in addition to postal balloting;
• Scrapping the requirement for support from 40% of those entitled to vote for industrial action in health, schools, the fire service, transport, nuclear decommissioning and border security;
• Scrapping the requirement for a 50% turnout for any industrial action ballot to succeed.

The last is perhaps the most significant. Since 2016 a number of important strike ballots have failed under this rule, despite in some cases large majorities voting in favour – notably in the NHS, and just recently in higher education over pay.

The problem is that, whereas the ERA makes scrapping the 40% support threshold in “essential” services immediate on its passing, and other measures in connection to industrial action rules operative after two months, it leaves when the wider 50% turnout threshold is scrapped up to the responsible Secretary of State.

The government has been unclear on when it plans to remove this restriction. Reports have suggested it might be kicked into the long grass, to be implemented only after the introduction of electronic balloting. The government’s implementation “roadmap” suggests electronic balloting will come in from April 2026, but the timetable already seems to be out of date due to passing of the law being delayed. It says nothing clear specifically on the turnout threshold.

It is surely not overly cynical to fear that the government will look for ways to at least delay implementation of this point, for bad reasons including avoiding public-sector strikes at a crucial time for workers’ living standards and the future of public services. The labour movement must vocally demand and actively campaign for a clear, fast timetable to scrap the threshold. At the moment it isn’t.

Step up the fight

During the passage of the bill, unions largely gave up on fighting for measures to strengthen it, even in areas providing very clear targets for campaigning, instead focusing on what a great victory the existing form of the legislation represented. The result was a debate shaped by employer lobbying, backed up by the Tories and the right-wing media, and a largely defensive struggle to prevent further concessions.

Thus the abandonment of the high profile commitment to unfair dismissal rights from day one. Indeed, it is reported that a majority of Labour-affiliated unions gave their blessing to this retreat in order to get the bill passed. (Worth noting that unions have completely failed to raise the crucial demand for workers to have the right to be reinstated if they are found to have been dismissed unfairly.)

Now it has passed, we are seeing even more self-congratulation from union leaders. But the fight is not or should not be over: not only in the wider sense of actually using what expanded collective rights the ERA does provide, but also because large parts of it will be implemented on the basis of various kinds of consultation. This provides numerous opportunities for employers to push to further weaken its impact.

Perhaps also opportunities to push the other way – but only if the labour movement takes them / makes them. We need to get into campaigning mode to fight around the Act’s implementation – as well as pushing for maximum use of any new openings to organise and to organise struggles. This needs to be connected to the fight against wider anti-protest laws too.

Demand the right to strike!

Even if the 50% turnout threshold is removed early next year, that will still leave in place the vast majority of “anti-union law” restrictions on the right to strike. To take industrial action, workers will still have to jump through the hoops of a complex and slow bureaucratic process, designed to prevent impactful and effective action. Industrial action for anything but narrowly defined workplace/industrial issues will remain illegal, as crucially will workers taking action in solidarity with each other’s disputes.

There are reports that when the contents of the Bill were initially being discussed, representatives of giant public-sector UNISON were central to opposing removal of the ban on solidarity action. It is certainly the case that unions have not campaigned or even made arguments about the pre-2016 anti-union laws. That needs to change. UNISON’s election of a new general secretary may provide an opportunity.

There is already some agitation, led by the Institute of Employment Rights, for an “Employment Rights Bill #2”. That is welcome, though there is not much discussion on how to build an actual campaign for it.

Within an overall view of the ERA’s weaknesses and omissions, we also need a specific and explicit focus on the question of the right to strike and comprehensively abolishing restrictions on it. We should agitate in the labour movement for that in the months ahead.

• freeourunions@gmail.com

TUC calls for “immediate repeal of all anti-union laws”

The recent congress of the TUC, which took place form 7-10 September, reaffirmed the TUC’s support for repealing all legal restrictions on the right to strike.

The resolution can be read online here. The full text is below.

Congress has passed resolutions along these lines for the past several years. There is no doubt that supporting the repeal of all anti-union laws is the clear majority position of the UK labour movement.

There is a gap, however, between passing the resolutions, and acting on them. Both the TUC and its affiliated unions must do much more to promote this policy, including organising demonstrations and other direct actions to press our demands of the government.

C04 Strengthening the Employment Rights Bill

Received from: BFAWU, POA

Comprising Motions 17, 18 and 19 and amendment

Congress notes the Employment Rights Bill introduced by the new Labour government to strengthen the rights of workers in the workplace.

We welcome real improvements to workers’ rights and conditions, including the commitment to repeal some of the most recent Tory anti-union laws, such as the Minimum Service Levels Act 2023 and the undemocratic ballot thresholds introduced by the Trade Union Act 2016.

This Congress welcomes the specific seafarer protections included in the Employment Rights Bill and congratulates this government on seeking to deliver a generational shift in UK maritime employment protection.

However, many anti-union laws continue to limit workers’ ability to organise, take action and win improvements through collective strength – especially the continued ban on solidarity action.

There is also insufficient commitment to strengthening collective bargaining, which is vital to reversing the long-term decline in wages and conditions. The Bill further leaves dangerous loopholes around ‘fire and rehire’ practices and zero-hour contracts that employers will continue to exploit. Congress is concerned about delays in implementing even the reforms promised.

Congress notes that the Labour government informed the POA they do not intend to restore the right to strike for prison officers in England/Wales or Northern Ireland and they are prepared to defend Tory legislation in the European courts.

This was after the general secretary of the TUC wrote a letter offering a potential way forward on a without prejudice basis to ascertain whether agreement could be reached with government and employers that would mean there was no need to rely on Section 127 of the Criminal Justice Act 1994 which restricts prison officers from taking any form of action.

Offshore employment contracts persist in the shipping industry and have the effect of denying many UK resident seafarers full UK employment and social protections. These issues are compounded by the widespread use of ‘flags of convenience’ (FOCs), which undermine good governance and effective control of ships by bona fide flag states such as the UK.

Congress therefore calls on the TUC to:

i. draft a comprehensive workers’ rights package including:
– immediate repeal of all anti-union laws
– a full ban on ‘fire and rehire’ and zero-hour contracts
– a £15 per hour minimum wage with no age exemptions
– a statutory right to collective bargaining for all workers

ii. coordinate a national campaign, including opposition to austerity and industrial action if necessary.

Congress condemns government for not exploring potential avenues of agreement with TUC intervention and Congress vows to continue the campaign to bring government to the table for negotiations that prison officers lack the basic human right to withdraw their own labour on a without prejudice basis.

Congress calls upon the TUC General Council to support Nautilus International’s and RMT’s campaign for:

a. delivery of legislation that will support and protect the employment of UK resident maritime professionals through the enaction of cabotage and/or domestic employment quotas that will help revitalise coastal communities and regenerate coastal community wealth building

b. a review of ‘offshore employment’ practices to ensure UK seafarers benefit from full UK employment and social protections

c. the enforcement of Articles 91 and 94 of UNCLOS, which mandate a ‘genuine link’ and ‘effective control’ of ships to eradicate flags of convenience and to seek to tackle this on the international stage

d. the strengthening of the Employment Rights Bill (ERB) Mandatory Seafarers Charter to contain further protections and provisions including holiday and sick pay, pensions and crewing levels, as pledged by Labour.

e. the fullest possible application of the ERB for seafarers.

These actions are essential to promote employment of UK seafarers to ensure better regulation and enforcement in the shipping industry and decent working conditions for all maritime professionals, including ratings.

Mover: POA
Seconder: Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union
Supporters: Nautilus International, National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers

Join the solidarity rally in Hull!

Hull Trains drivers in Aslef are striking against the sacking of a workmate for raising health and safety concerns. They will hold a solidarity rally on Friday 29 August.

StrikeMap writes:

On 29 August, our national affiliate, ASLEF, is organising a mass solidarity rally outside Hull Paragon Station.

ASLEF members have so far taken 73 days of strike action, after Hull Trains sacked one of their members due to raising health and safety concerns. 

Union busting is disgusting. 

We need this action to be significant, which is why we are calling on all supporters to join us in Hull.

Together, we will demonstrate our solidarity with ASLEF and make it clear to every employer that we will not tolerate trade union victimisation. 

The rally begins at 10.30am at Hull Paragon Station.

John Hendy proposes new amendments to legalise solidarity strikes

Labour peer John Hendy will propose new amendments to the Employment Rights Bill to legalise “secondary” (solidarity) action.

Cross-posted from the website of the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom (CTUF) here.

Campaign for Trade Union Freedom Vice president Lord John Hendy KC will be moving two at the Report stage in the House of Lords over the next two weeks (14, 16, 21, and 23 July). The CTUF writes: “CTUF would appreciate support from CTUF affiliated trade unions. If you have contacts with members of the the House of Lords it would be appreciated if you could forward these via your union amendments to them requesting they support them.”

We in Free Our Unions add: unions must agitate around these amendments, minimally to raise awareness that they are being put. Labour-affiliated unions should use their weight within party structures to promote the amendments and build support for them.

Employment Rights Bill
Amendments proposed by Lord (John) Hendy at Report stage
(as at 7 July 2025)

After Clause 72, insert the following new Clause— 

“Right to take secondary industrial action 

(1) The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 is amended as follows. 

(2) In subsection (1) of section 220 (peaceful picketing), for sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) substitute “a place of work”. 

(3) In section 220, omit subsections (2) to (4). 

(4) Omit section 224 (secondary action). 

(5) In subsection (1) of section 244 (meaning of “trade dispute” in Part V), for “a dispute between workers and their employer” substitute “a dispute between workers and one or more employers”. 

(6) In subsection (1) of section 244, for “which relates wholly or mainly to” substitute “connected with”. 

(7) In subsection (5) of section 244, for “a worker employed by that employer” substitute “a worker employed by an employer”.” 

Member’s explanatory statement These amendments would remove the provisions (in sections 224 and 244) that render unlawful all forms of ‘secondary’ industrial action. including the rights of pickets to picket places of work other than their own.

After Clause 54, insert the following new Chapter and Clause— 

“Chapter 4

Sectoral collective bargaining 

(1) The Secretary of State may make regulations for the establishment of Statutory Joint Industrial Councils. 

(2) The regulations shall provide that— 

(a) a Statutory Joint Industrial Council shall be composed of equal numbers of— 

(i) nominees of employers’ associations (or nominees of employers) which appear to ACAS to represent employers in the sector, and 

(ii) nominees of independent trade unions which appear to ACAS to represent workers in the sector, 

(b) a Statutory Joint Industrial Council shall have the function of conducting collective bargaining to— 

(i) establish levels and rates of remuneration (including pensions), terms, conditions and other benefits for those who work in the particular sector of the economy; 

(ii) determine any other matter within the scope of section 178(2) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (collective agreements and collective bargaining); 

(iii) formulate its constitution and procedural arrangements including a dispute resolution procedure; 

(iv) resolve any other matter which the Statutory Joint Industrial Council desires to consider, 

(c) any agreements reached by a Statutory Joint Industrial Council shall apply to the workers and employers in the relevant sector save to the extent that a previous or a subsequent contract or collective agreement makes more favourable provision, 

(d) it is for the Secretary of State (in the light of advice from ACAS) to determine what constitutes a sector of the economy for the purposes of establishing a Statutory Joint Industrial Council, and 

(e) a Statutory Joint Industrial Council may only be made following consultation with— 

(i) nominees of employers’ associations (and/or nominees of employers) which appear to ACAS to represent employers in the sector, and 

(ii) nominees of independent trade unions which appear to ACAS to represent workers in the sector.” 

Member’s explanatory statement This amendment is intended to enable regulations to be laid for sectoral collective bargaining in particular sectors of the economy. The concept of the Statutory Joint Industrial Council is taken from s.90 and Schedule 8, Employment Protection Act 1975, reproduced in Part II of the Wages Councils Act 1979.

Oppose the proscription of Palestine Action

The use of anti-terrorism laws against civil disobedience could have far reaching effects for the trade union movement.

Free Our Unions is supporting an open letter, initiated by the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, opposing the proscription of Palestine Action. The text of the letter is below; you or your organisation can add your names here.

We, as individuals or as organisations representing a broad spectrum of civil society and the legal community, are writing to you, in response to the threat of proscribing the grassroots solidarity and direct action group, Palestine Action. 

The United Kingdom has a long and proud history of direct action that opposes military intervention. From Greenham Common to the 2 million marching in London against the invasion of Iraq, British governments of different political persuasions have respected people’s right to peacefully protest. Indeed, as the leading case of R v Jones makes clear : “The appellants acted as they did because they wished to impede, obstruct or disrupt the commission of that crime, or what they believed would be the commission of that crime, by Her Majesty’s Government or the Government of the United States against Iraq in the weeks and days before (as we now know) hostilities began.”

Any attempt to criminalise peaceful direct action including by mislabelling it as ‘terrorism” would raise grave concerns, some of which are listed below for your consideration:

  • It would be unwise to blur the very clear lines between peaceful protest and terrorism by using misleading rhetoric. This conflation can underplay the credible dangers of genuine terrorism, legitimise terrorism in the eyes of those members of the public who support this cause, and confer unjustified renown on groups that are unfairly proscribed.
  • In a series of acts contrary to international law, the UK govt appears to be using the RAF Brize Norton base to onward service RAF Akrotiri that in turn is used by our allies and the UK to facilitate what the ICJ has found to be a plausible genocide in Gaza. As a state party to the Genocide Convention, facilitating such a genocide would be a particularly egregious breach of international law, by the UK. The UK government, by simultaneously seeking to criminalise those peacefully protesting this genocide using proscription, is further doubling down on these acts, rather than remedying these errors of judgment, as it should.
  • Even if it were assessed by the Home Secretary that measures are needed to be taken to deal with this particular direct action group, a wide range of more proportionate, proven and effective remedies are available to her. 
  • Having to enforce and police the proscription of Palestine Action would create a disproportionate strain on police resources and an ensuing additional and unjustified burden on the justice system to enforce such a proscription. It would leave many ordinary members of the public vulnerable – for example, simply wearing a t-shirt saying “I support Palestine Action” would be seen as violating the proscription and action would need to be taken. 
  • There are many dangers to proscribing peaceful direct action groups, even if their objectives are those some of us may disagree with. Current and future governments may misuse this precedent to attack other interest groups in future, offering no avenues for peacefully venting dissent. Bottling public anger and frustration creates the breeding ground for violence by or against members of the public. 

It is our hope that the Home Secretary will recognise both the moral arguments and the strength of feeling in civil society in this matter and resile from this proscription