Palestine Action Ban Ruled Unlawful | Starmer Can’t Afford To Appeal This

High Court rules Palestine Action ban unlawful as Starmer’s government appeals, keeping proscription in force and fuelling backlash already. Right, so Keir Starmer’s government has just been told by the High Court that the Palestine Action ban was unlawful, and instead of taking the hit and moving on, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is already saying they’re appealing, which means they’re choosing to spend more public money fighting for the right to keep a protest group proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000. “That label isn’t just a badge, it’s a legal weapon, because once proscription is in place it creates offences around membership and inviting support, it makes speech and symbols legally risky, and it gives police grounds to act on banners, badges and slogans, and it does it while ministers hide behind the word “security” like it ends the conversation. So in this video I’m going to walk through five concrete reasons that appeal is going to blow up in Labour’s face, because the court has already said they overreached, and the only question left is how loudly they insist on proving it again. Right, so Keir Starmer is now fronting a government that has been told by the High Court that its decision to proscribe Palestine Action was unlawful, and Shabana Mahmood is still insisting on appealing, which means the ban stays in place for now while the state argues for the right to keep it. Huda Ammori has brought the challenge as a co-founder of Palestine Action, so this isn’t some abstract rights group speaking on someone else’s behalf, it’s the person at the centre of it forcing the Home Office to justify the terrorism label in court. Dame Victoria Sharp has been on the panel that has ruled there was very significant interference with freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, and that is the court describing the move as a rights hit, not a bit of paperwork. Mahmood has chosen appeal over acceptance, so instead of taking the loss and stepping back, she’s dragging the government into a longer fight to defend the decision. And that lands on Starmer because he is the prime minister, she is his Home Secretary, and he’s the one who ends up owning the bill and the blame.