Politics
Government battle against Palestine Action proves costly
Keir Starmer’s Home Office has blown nearly £700,000 on court and lawyer fees to oppose Palestine Action co-founder, Huda Ammori’s judicial review to overturn the government’s ban on the anti-genocide direct action group. Starmer has used the ban to arrest thousands of mostly elderly and disabled protesters for opposing it.
Human rights groups have condemned Starmer’s police-state action, with Amnesty International describing it as a:
disproportionate misuse of the UK’s terrorism powers [that] should be overturned.
The court’s decision on the judicial review will be announced tomorrow, 13 February 2026.
This cost is nothing compared to the millions spent, since the ban began in July 2025, on arresting the activists who opposed the ban. Then-home secretary Yvette Coooper was caught in repeated lies to justify the ban, which UK security and intelligence experts had recommended against.
Featured image via the Canary