#lawfare — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #lawfare, aggregated by home.social.
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‘Golpes da direita patrocinados pelos EUA não operam com violência explícita’, diz analista
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‘Golpes da direita patrocinados pelos EUA não operam com violência explícita’, diz analista
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‘Golpes da direita patrocinados pelos EUA não operam com violência explícita’, diz analista
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“Mary had public standing and thousands of supporters. The next person may have neither. Australia needs independent legal, financial and advocacy support in place before a journalist or whistleblower exhausts their savings and health.”
https://pearlsandirritations.com/post/2026/09/one-act-courage-calls-for-another/
#AusPol #Lawfare #terrorism #ForeignInterference -
"Long live NSW Supreme Court Justice Desmond Fagan, and Federal Court Justice Angus Stewart."
https://marykostakidis932572.substack.com/p/rule1-dont-be-intimidated-rule-2
#Lawfare #AusPol #terrorism -
EXPOSING THE UK STATE’S ONGOING WITCH-HUNT OF DIRECT ACTION, PROTEST LAW & PALESTINE SOLIDARITY: FROM RULING THE WAVES TO WAIVING THE RULES
Summary
The study below begins with the Barclays Five and a precise question: what may the state add after a jury has returned its verdict?Starting from Preston Crown Court, it then takes a deep dive to find, then follow the thread running through Filton, Elbit Systems, Lancashire’s BAe Systems F-35 supply chain, jury independence, conscientious objection, protest law and MP’s post-9/11 promises recorded in Hansard.
It is not an argument that protest places anyone above the law. It is an invitation to look more closely at whether the law applies its labels, safeguards and burdens of proof equally, and, if not, why not?
The toxic danger is lawfare—not only an individual prosecution, but the gradual conversion of exceptional counter-terror language into an ordinary response to political dissent.
Read it slowly. The details matter. So do the gaps between them.
Evidence before labels.
EXPOSING THE UK STATE’S ONGOING WITCH-HUNT OF DIRECT ACTION, PROTEST LAW & PALESTINE SOLIDARITY_ FROM RULING THE WAVES TO WAIVING THE RULES _ _ truthaholicsDownload
Due process before punishment.
Respect existence—or expect resistance.EXPOSING THE UK STATE’S ONGOING WITCH-HUNT OF DIRECT ACTION, PROTEST LAW & PALESTINE SOLIDARITY: FROM RULING THE WAVES TO WAIVING THE RULES
Proud Preston is where the label meets the statute. No charge. No count. No label.
Truthaholics’ civil-liberties, speaking truth to power, approach begins with a simple question: is the UK state itself following the rule of law it claims to defend?
Punish the offence proved. Do not enlarge it by hindsight, ideology or unevidenced association.
Preston Crown Court has become a recurring site in the law of protest—not because every protest case deserves the same outcome, but because the same constitutional question keeps returning:
What may the state add beyond the act charged, the procedure followed and the verdict returned?
On 15 June 2026, Brendan O’Hagan, Amanda Kelly, Humeera Atiq Nisar, Mohammed Malik and Alma Yaniv were convicted before HHJ Philip Parry at Preston Crown Court of criminal damage following the 5 August 2024 action at a Barclays bank branch in Burnley. The official ruling records damaged windows, red paint and £177,337 in loss, rising to just over £200,000 including VAT. Sentence was adjourned to 4 September 2026.¹
No terrorism offence had been charged. No terrorism count had gone to the jury. No jury was asked to decide whether the conduct was terrorism.
Then, on 22 June—seven days after conviction—HHJ Parry directed the parties to make submissions on whether section 69 of the Sentencing Act 2020 applied. The Crown filed its written case on 8 July. The matter was transferred to HHJ Altham because the trial judge was not authorised to determine terrorist cases.² That sequence was the basis for legitimate alarm.
Free the Filton 25 captured the concern in its pre-hearing headline: “Judge moves to sentence Barclays spray-painters as terrorists, despite no terror charges.”³ That was campaign advocacy, not a judicial description. But the constitutional question was real: can an exceptional terrorism label emerge after a criminal-damage verdict where it was neither charged nor put to the jury?
The defence argued that the defendants had been denied notice, a preparatory hearing, procedural safeguards and the ability to assess their full legal peril before trial. It also argued that a section 69 finding would aggravate sentence for an offence more serious in substance than the one the jury had decided.⁴
HHJ Altham rejected those arguments. He accepted the Crown’s case that evidence relied upon for section 69—four defendants’ claimed Palestine Action affiliation, training and participation in a wider campaign—only became admissible through the defendants’ trial evidence. He held that section 69 does not create a separate offence or alter the statutory maximum sentence.⁵
That conclusion deserves respectful disagreement and democratic scrutiny. A terrorism-connected finding may not create a fresh count, but it can alter the public meaning, sentencing consequences and lasting stigma of a conviction. Due process is not only about the statutory maximum. It is about notice, predictability, informed legal advice and the integrity of jury trial.
What section 69 could have changed
The consequences explain why the application caused such concern.
A terrorism-connection finding is not a new conviction, but section 69 requires the sentencing court to treat it as an aggravating factor and state that publicly. It may also engage a distinct terrorist-offender regime, including altered release arrangements and long-term police-notification duties. The precise consequences depend on the sentence imposed and the statutory provisions engaged. They should not be caricatured as a legal requirement to renounce political beliefs or “show remorse” by abandoning a cause.
For adults, notification obligations may last 10, 15 or 30 years, depending principally on sentence length. They can require notification of addresses, contact details, vehicles, financial accounts and identity documents, including relevant changes.⁶
The concern was not invented. Amnesty International UK described the prospect of treating the Barclays convictions as terrorism as disproportionate. A senior civil-liberties lawyer told the BBC that the post-verdict process was unfair because terrorism had not been put to the jury. The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, took the legally distinct position that judges have authority to make terrorist-connection findings at sentence.⁷
These are competing assessments. One is a civil-liberties critique; the other describes legal authority. Neither should be misreported as the other.
The relevant comparator is the Filton Four. On 12 June 2026, Mr Justice Johnson found a terrorism connection in criminal-damage convictions arising from direct action at Elbit Systems’ Filton factory. Amnesty reported that the four were sentenced on that basis; contemporary reporting stated that the finding affected release arrangements and imposed 15-year notification requirements.⁸
That is why the Barclays section 69 hearing mattered. It was not merely a dispute over a label. It concerned the legal and practical consequences of importing a terrorism finding into an ordinary criminal-damage sentence.
Yet the ruling held a vital line.
The Crown’s application failed. HHJ Altham found that, in the statutory context of terrorism legislation, the Barclays damage did not amount to “serious damage.” The five remain liable to sentence for criminal damage—not terrorism.⁹
No charge. No jury finding. No section 69 label. The statute held.
The court held that the “quality of the act” matters. Financial value is not decisive; lower-value damage could theoretically be serious where it affected sensitive infrastructure relied upon by many people. The ruling distinguished Barclays from R v Head and others, involving an Elbit-related arms-manufacturing site, specialist equipment including drones and damage exceeding £1 million.
That distinction may be legally proper. But it exposes an imbalance.
When used by the stateWhen offered by a defendantCampaign association can indicate political purposeBelief in a humanitarian emergency can be treated as irrelevantTarget sensitivity can support exceptional punishmentA target’s connection to arms supply or alleged IHL violations can be excludedPublic impact can form part of the “quality” of an actAn intention to avoid persons and expose institutions can be discountedPolitical meaning can support aggravationPolitical context can be denied a role in motive, intention or mitigationA court may conclude that such explanations do not establish lawful excuse. That is not the same as saying they are irrelevant to belief, intention, alleged intimidation or sentence.
At paragraph 53, HHJ Altham said only what he would have noted had it become necessary: Barclays itself was not a section of the public, although customers and high-street users could potentially be. That was not a finding that anyone had actually been intimidated.¹⁰
If political context is relevant to aggravation, it is relevant to explanation.
The context the law cannot erase
The Barclays and Filton actions occurred in August 2024. Contemporary reporting matters—not as hindsight, but as part of the factual environment from which a defendant’s belief may have formed.
On 2 August 2024, UNRWA had publicly reported aerial, land and maritime bombardment, civilian casualties, mass displacement, destroyed homes and public infrastructure, and more than 600,000 Palestinian children out of school.¹¹ It subsequently reported at least 39,677 Palestinians killed and 91,645 injured since 7 October 2023, citing Gaza’s Ministry of Health. OCHA reported August evacuation orders affecting an estimated 213,000 people and fuel shortages that postponed surgery, disrupted ambulances and threatened healthcare, water and sanitation. UNRWA and medical agencies warned that a confirmed polio case endangered around 640,000 children under ten.¹²
No responsible writer can claim to know what proportion of any jury had seen this material; there is no evidence for a fixed figure. But the scale of civilian killing, displacement and destruction had generated growing global public outrage, including concern that the violence was not being restrained and that external military support was enabling its continuation.
That does not prove what any defendant knew. It does not create a statutory defence. It establishes the publicly available world in which a defendant’s belief may have formed.
Later UN and humanitarian reporting documents continuing attacks on healthcare, service collapse, extensive structural damage, displacement and water deprivation.¹³ Those reports are humanitarian documentation—not findings determining British criminal liability or a final judicial finding of genocide.
Context may explain belief and motive. It does not automatically excuse conduct. But it must not be transformed into proof of terrorist intent, dangerousness or collective guilt.
The Lancashire F-35 chain
The Lancashire connection is real, local and material.
BAe Systems’ Samlesbury facility manufactures and assembles the rear section of every F-35 Lightning II in the global programme: the aft fuselage, vertical tails and horizontal tails. BAe describes its overall F-35 contribution as approximately 13–15 percent of each aircraft, excluding propulsion.¹⁴
The completed rear section enters Lockheed Martin’s global final-assembly chain at Fort Worth, Texas. Israel operates the F-35I “Adir”, its nationally modified F-35 variant; Israeli F-35Is have been used in Gaza operations.¹⁵
StageWhat is establishedWhy it mattersEvidential limitSamlesburyBAe manufactures and assembles the F-35 rear fuselage and tail assemblies for every aircraft in the global programmeA Lancashire factory contributes to the worldwide F-35 fleetIt does not identify a particular component with a particular attackGlobal assemblySamlesbury-built rear sections enter Lockheed Martin’s F-35 final-assembly chainThe supply chain is international, but the UK-made component remains materialIt is not a direct shipment from Lancashire to the Israeli Air ForceIsraeli F-35I fleetIsrael operates the F-35I and has used it in Gaza operationsPolitical concern about the programme is neither abstract nor geographically remoteIt does not establish individual criminal liability by BAe, workers, ministers or othersUK licensing policyIn September 2024, the Government identified a clear risk that some military exports to Israel might facilitate serious IHL violations, suspended about 30 licences, but retained a conditional global F-35 exemptionGovernment acknowledged the legal sensitivity of arms supply while preserving the multinational F-35 programmeThis policy does not create a private right to damage property or determine liability in a protest caseThis is not a claim that BAe, its workforce, Barclays, ministers or any other company has committed an international crime. Nor does it make criminal damage lawful.
It establishes a narrower point:
When a factory near Preston manufactures rear sections and tail assemblies for every F-35—including the global programme from which Israel’s F-35I fleet is assembled—public political concern about that fact is neither irrational, abstract nor geographically remote.
The public-law setting of ongoing arms production involving BAe and Elbit differs from local land-use and fossil-fuel disputes, including Cuadrilla. But neither the scale of an industry nor the gravity of alleged harm creates a licence to commit crime.
Equally, courts should not create a hierarchy of permissible conscience: concern over arms exports dismissed as politically irrelevant while “security”, “sensitivity” and campaign affiliation are treated as relevant to exceptional punishment.
Jurors, Filton and due process
Campaign and activist reporting has stated that, during the Preston June trial, two jurors asked HHJ Parry whether they could acquit “according to their conscience”, and that he told them they could not.¹⁶
That account should not be overstated. No approved transcript, jury note or judicial direction establishing the exchange has been located. It must therefore remain an attributed report, not an established courtroom fact.
The legal position is narrower than either slogan suggests. A jury cannot be directed to convict; R v Wang is clear on that. But jurors must try the case according to the evidence and the judge’s legal directions.¹⁷ Jury independence must not be mythologised, but neither must it become a judicially managed conveyor belt to a guilty verdict.
The Filton closing speeches belong in that space.
They are not judgments. They are not evidence. The available texts are campaign-published or activist-media documents, not approved court transcripts. They must be read as attributed advocacy—not as findings adopted by a judge or jury.
Publicly available material includes Rajiv Menon KC’s closing address for Charlotte Head; self-delivered retrial speeches by Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Jordan Devlin and Zoe Rogers; Tom Wainwright’s closing address for Samuel Corner; and campaign-published speeches for Sean Middleborough, Aleksandra Herbich, Julija Brigadirova and William Plastow.¹⁸
Complete verified public texts have not been located for every defendant in every Filton trial, including Hannah Davidson, Ian Sanders, Madeleine Norman and Teuta Hoxha. That absence should be acknowledged, not filled with inference.
Sean Middleborough’s defence reportedly stressed that Palestine Action membership was not evidence of guilt for criminal damage or violent disorder. Aleksandra Herbich’s counsel argued that food shopping and cooking did not prove intentional assistance or encouragement of violent disorder or criminal damage.¹⁹
That is not sentiment. It is criminal law:
- What did this defendant do?
- What did this defendant know?
- What did this defendant intend?
- What offence did this defendant intentionally assist or encourage?
- Has the Crown proved that case beyond reasonable doubt?
The answer cannot lawfully be: “They belonged to the wrong movement.”
The Filton speeches placed conduct in the context of Elbit Systems, Gaza, British arms production, Palestinian suffering and the claimed failure of ordinary democratic routes. That context may be relevant to belief, motive, intention, mitigation and public understanding.
But legal precision matters. A sincere political or moral motive does not automatically establish a defence to criminal damage, aggravated burglary or violent disorder.
Section 5 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 provides limited lawful-excuse protections, principally concerning honest belief in consent or immediate protection of property, rights or interests in property.²⁰ In 2024, the Court of Appeal confirmed that the perceived merits, urgency or importance of a political cause cannot simply be imported into the statutory meaning of relevant “circumstances.”²¹
Conscience may explain conduct; it does not automatically legalise it. Political belief may be relevant evidence; it is not a substitute for the elements of an offence or defence.
Rajiv Menon KC’s published closing address invoked Bushell’s Case, arising from the prosecution of Quaker preachers William Penn and William Mead in 1670, after jurors were punished for refusing to return the verdict demanded by the court.
Menon’s point must be stated accurately. He said the judge had withdrawn lawful excuse from the jury’s consideration, but expressly said he was not asking jurors to disregard legal directions. He argued that no judge may direct a jury to convict.²²
The modern authority is R v Wang: there are no circumstances in which a judge may direct a jury to convict.²³ That does not create a free-standing “jury equity” defence or entitle counsel to invite jurors to ignore the law. The judge directs on law; the jury decides guilt.
Peaceful expression and assembly remain protected by Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In DPP v Ziegler, the Supreme Court held that deliberate obstruction during protest could, on its facts, engage those rights and a statutory lawful-excuse analysis for a highway-obstruction charge.²⁴
Ziegler concerned protest outside the DSEI arms fair, not criminal damage. It does not establish universal immunity for offences committed during protest.
From emergency to infrastructure
When the Terrorism Bill was introduced in 1999, then Home Secretary and MP for Blackburn, Jack Straw described terrorism as serious violence for political, religious or ideological ends—premeditated conduct aimed at creating a climate of extreme fear. He said counter-terror powers should approximate ordinary criminal procedure, be used only where necessary, include safeguards and comply with international law.²⁵
He also assured Parliament that the Bill was not designed to threaten peaceful protest, demonstrations or ordinary domestic activist groups. MPs warned that broad definitions could reach environmental direct action, anti-colonial campaigns and international solidarity movements.²⁶
That constitutional promise was not extinguished by 11 September 2001.
The record is not a crude tale of every power always increasing. The 2001 foreign-national detention regime was declared incompatible with Convention rights; the 28-day detention maximum later lapsed; and the proposed 42-day reserve power did not become law.²⁷
The deeper problem is different. Temporary emergency mechanisms gave way to a standing counter-terror architecture: preventative duties, intelligence-led policing, broad speech and association offences, proscription, financial disruption, port powers and a widening tendency to frame political dissent as a security question.
LEGISLATION and assuranceSafeguard promisedWhat happenedWhy it matters2001: Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security BillMeasures described as proportionate, reasonable, reviewable and responsive to a post-9/11 emergencyThe House of Lords quashed the Article 5 derogation and declared the foreign-national detention regime incompatible with Convention rightsExecutive necessity claims require real judicial scrutiny2005: Prevention of Terrorism BillControl orders said to strike the “right balance” between liberty and securityThe detention regime was replaced by continuing restrictions; control orders were later replaced by TPIMsExceptional prevention moved beyond criminal conviction2006: Terrorism ActThe 28-day pre-charge limit was subject to annual renewalThe 28-day power lasted until January 2011, then lapsed and reverted to 14 daysSunset clauses can work—if Parliament allows them to expire2008: Counter-Terrorism BillProposed 42-day reserve power was framed as exceptional, temporary and judicially supervisedIt did not become lawSafeguard language is no substitute for demonstrated necessity2015 onwards: Prevent dutySpecified bodies were required to prevent people being drawn into terrorism; guidance promised a consistent and proportionate thresholdPrevent became a standing duty across education, health, local government, prisons and policing; rights groups and academic research report a chilling effectCivic institutions can become sites of political surveillance and self-censorship2025 onwards: Palestine Action proscriptionGovernment said proscription would not diminish the right to lawful protestParliamentarians, rights groups and scholars warned of chill; legality and proportionality are now before the Supreme Court in AmmoriThe Article 10 and 11 boundary is live: when does serious property damage become terrorism?This is the golden thread: not that the law gives protesters a licence to damage property, but that the legal system must not strip political defendants of relevant motive and context while allowing the state to convert association, symbolism and dissent into proxies for terrorist intent.
The 2001 emergency did not simply continue unchanged. Some of its sharpest detention powers ended. But its governing habit endured:
Risk before proof. Prevention before trial. Association before individual responsibility. Security language before political explanation.
That is classic authoritarian drift. “Fascism” is a historically specific term and should not be used as a factual label for every illiberal policy. The evidence-based warning is that democracy degrades when exceptional powers become normal administrative tools, when rights depend on approved opinion and when state security narratives crowd out individual proof and open justice.
For a state that often presents its constitutional tradition as a model of democracy and the rule of law, even fount of democracy for the world as some claim, the proper response to conscientious opposition to war, arms policy or corporate interests connected with armed conflict cannot be to equate dissent with disloyalty.
Magna Carta’s enduring proposition is that government is not above law. The Bill of Rights 1689 affirmed the right of petition and protection against governmental interference with it.²⁸ Articles 10 and 11 protect peaceful expression and assembly, including some deliberately disruptive protest, but they are qualified rights. They neither authorise violence nor create a general immunity from prosecution for criminal damage or other offences.²⁹
Nor should Article 9 conscientious-objection protection be overstated. It confirms that a serious and insurmountable conflict between military service and conscience may attract human-rights protection; it does not create a free-standing defence to civilian direct action.³⁰
The public-law answer to concern about warfare, arms exports and commercial incentives is lawful scrutiny: transparent decision-making, parliamentary supervision, effective judicial review and faithful application of export-licensing rules requiring refusal where there is a clear risk that equipment may be used to commit or facilitate serious IHL violations.³¹
This is not abstract. UNHCR identifies conflict, persecution and denial of human rights as interconnected root causes of refugee displacement. That does not support treating refugees, asylum seekers and all migration as one phenomenon.³²
Human rights are universal—not favours granted only to the politically approved. But universality entails equal legal protection and equal legal restraint.³³
The integrity of justice requires evidence-based allegations, individual criminal responsibility, independent courts and opposition to any attempt—by state, corporation, movement or individual—to manipulate, corrupt or pervert legal process.
Three Preston moments
The Altham record is not a one-judge theory of protest law. It combines three different legal chapters, concerning three different limits on state power.
2018: proportionality
HHJ Altham gave three anti-fracking protesters immediate prison sentences for public nuisance arising from action at Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site. The Court of Appeal quashed those sentences as manifestly excessive and substituted conditional discharges.³⁴
The principle was proportionality: punishment must fit the offence proved.
The case later attracted attention concerning his alleged family connections with oil-and-gas-related business interests. A conduct complaint followed. The narrower legal point remains decisive: the appeal succeeded because the sentences were manifestly excessive, not because the Court of Appeal created immunity for environmental protest or found judicial misconduct.
2022–23: statutory procedure
In a CCRC-referred case following a guilty plea, HHJ Altham, by then Recorder of Preston, declined to require a separate application to vacate the plea before the Crown Court could hear the appeal. The CPS sought judicial review and lost.³⁵
The principle was statutory procedure: courts should not add a barrier Parliament did not enact.
2026: exceptional proof
The Crown sought a section 69 terrorism-connected finding after a criminal-damage conviction. HHJ Altham held that the necessary “serious damage” threshold had not been established.³⁶
The principle was statutory restraint: exceptional labels require exceptional proof.
None of this means judges are always right, or that protest is beyond criminal law. It means the law must justify its coercive power.
Outside the court
Outside Preston Crown Court, the legal arguments had another civic audience.
Hundreds of pro-Palestine demonstrators from Preston and across the North West gathered with Palestinian flags and signs including “Free Palestine”, “Support the Barclays 5” and “Direct action is not terrorism”. Lancashire Police publicly acknowledged both the lawful right to protest and the need to preserve order and court business.³⁷
That gathering was not evidence in the case. It did not need to be.
The right to speak, assemble and dissent does not depend on winning a court case, gaining state approval or restricting oneself to language the powerful find comfortable. Articles 10 and 11 protect robust political expression and peaceful assembly—including speech that offends, shocks or disturbs.³⁸
That includes opposition to Zionism as a political ideology; criticism of Israeli state policy, military conduct, British arms exports and corporate finance; and increasing arguments that governments or companies stop being actively complicit in genocide and other international war crimes.
The legal position should be stated accurately. The ICJ proceedings concerning South Africa’s genocide case against Israel remain unresolved on their merits.³⁹ But people do not require a final judgment before they may examine evidence, witness virtually live-streamed mass-killing of displaced civilians, then argue that genocide is occurring, demand investigation, campaign for sanctions and ceasing the flow of arms supply, and organise for Palestinian liberation, so those victims can enjoy the same rights, autonomy and sovereignty as others.
Criticism of Israel, Zionism or corporate complicity is not the same as hostility towards Jewish people, as ethnically, Palestinians are definitively, semites. Antisemitism must be opposed without qualification. So must the conflation of Jewish identity with the acts of a state, or of anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
Arrest is not verdict
Preston arrest watch
Status: 24 August 2026. Seven people arrested outside Preston Crown Court on 21 August on suspicion of supporting a proscribed organisation under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 were reported as released under investigation. Two further arrests were reported in separate suspected criminal-damage and assault matters; no verified later status for those two individuals has been located. Arrest is not charge, and charge is not conviction.⁴⁰
Those are allegations, not convictions. They concern individual facts and specific legal powers; they do not define the larger Palestine-solidarity gathering.
Palestine Action is proscribed. Section 13 concerns displaying an article in public in circumstances that arouse reasonable suspicion that a person is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation.⁴¹ It does not create a general offence of being pro-Palestine, anti-Zionist, anti-war, anti-Barclays or anti-government.
The democratic task is to hold that line.
Do not treat Palestine solidarity as suspicious by default. Do not treat every direct-action campaign as terrorism. Do not use concern about antisemitism to silence legitimate criticism of Israel. And do not allow protection of free expression to excuse antisemitism, threats, harassment, racism, assault or unlawful support for a proscribed organisation.
Rights are strongest when they are defended universally and applied precisely.
Direct action and democratic change
History shows that direct action can expose a democratic failure when ordinary political channels have stopped listening. It does not automatically make unlawful conduct lawful; it creates pressure that institutions must answer.
That is the point of extra-institutional pressure: public action interrupts settled routines, brings suppressed grievances into view and forces law and government to confront principles they claim to uphold.
In Ackerman’s terms, sustained popular mobilisation can contribute to a “constitutional moment”—a period in which public pressure helps reshape the constitutional order. That is an analytical possibility, not a guarantee of vindication.
Past movements for suffrage, civil rights and decolonisation show that conduct once condemned can later influence the rights now treated as foundational. But history does not retrospectively legalise every act, and no campaign is entitled to assume that its own cause will be vindicated.
The defensible claim is narrower—and stronger:
Direct action can reveal the gap between positive law, government policy and fundamental justice. Democracy must be able to hear that challenge without abandoning individual proof, due process or the rule of law.
From emergency to infrastructure
When the Terrorism Bill was introduced in 1999, Jack Straw described terrorism as serious violence for political, religious or ideological ends—premeditated conduct aimed at creating a climate of extreme fear. He said counter-terror powers should approximate ordinary criminal procedure, be used only where necessary, include safeguards and comply with international law.⁴²
He also assured Parliament that the Bill was not designed to threaten peaceful protest, demonstrations or ordinary domestic activist groups. MPs warned that broad definitions could reach environmental direct action, anti-colonial campaigns and international solidarity movements.⁴³
That constitutional promise was not extinguished by 11 September 2001.
The record is not a crude tale of every power always increasing. The 2001 foreign-national detention regime was declared incompatible with Convention rights; the 28-day detention maximum later lapsed; and the proposed 42-day reserve power did not become law.⁴⁴
The deeper problem is different. Temporary emergency mechanisms gave way to a standing counter-terror architecture: preventative duties, intelligence-led policing, broad speech and association offences, proscription, financial disruption, port powers and a widening tendency to frame political dissent as a security question.
This is the golden thread: not that the law gives protesters a licence to damage property, but that the legal system must not strip political defendants of relevant motive and context while allowing the state to convert association, symbolism and dissent into proxies for terrorist intent.
The 2001 emergency did not simply continue unchanged. Some of its sharpest detention powers ended. But its governing habit endured:
Risk before proof. Prevention before trial. Association before individual responsibility. Security language before political explanation.
That is an authoritarian drift. “Fascism” is a historically specific term and should not be used as a factual label for every illiberal policy. The evidence-based warning is that democracy degrades when exceptional powers become normal administrative tools, when rights depend on approved opinion and when state security narratives crowd out individual proof and open justice.
For a state that often presents its constitutional tradition as a model of democracy and the rule of law, the proper response to conscientious opposition to war, arms policy or corporate interests connected with armed conflict cannot be to equate dissent with disloyalty.
Magna Carta’s enduring proposition is that government is not above law. The Bill of Rights 1689 affirmed the right of petition and protection against governmental interference with it.⁴⁵ Articles 10 and 11 protect peaceful expression and assembly, including some deliberately disruptive protest, but they are qualified rights. They neither authorise violence nor create a general immunity from prosecution for criminal damage or other offences.⁴⁶
Nor should Article 9 conscientious-objection protection be overstated. It confirms that a serious and insurmountable conflict between military service and conscience may attract human-rights protection; it does not create a free-standing defence to civilian direct action.⁴⁷
The public-law answer to concern about warfare, arms exports and commercial incentives is lawful scrutiny: transparent decision-making, parliamentary supervision, effective judicial review and faithful application of export-licensing rules requiring refusal where there is a clear risk that equipment may be used to commit or facilitate serious IHL violations.⁴⁸
This is not abstract. UNHCR identifies conflict, persecution and denial of human rights as interconnected root causes of refugee displacement. That does not support treating refugees, asylum seekers and all migration as one phenomenon.⁴⁹
Human rights are universal—not favours granted only to the politically approved. But universality entails equal legal protection and equal legal restraint.⁵⁰
The integrity of justice requires evidence-based allegations, individual criminal responsibility, independent courts and opposition to any attempt—by state, corporation, lobby, movement or individual—to manipulate, corrupt or pervert legal process.
Remedies: repair, not panic
The 2025 proscription debate revealed the present division. Government argued that Palestine Action met the statutory terrorism definition. Opponents argued that ordinary criminal law already addressed criminal damage, violent disorder and aggravated burglary, and that proscription would chill dissent.⁵¹
The Supreme Court has granted Huda Ammori permission to appeal on one ground against the Court of Appeal’s ruling concerning proscription. The hearing is listed for 4–5 November 2026. It is a separate public-law appeal, not an appeal in the Barclays criminal case; proscription remains in force unless and until lawfully changed.⁵²
Tony Greenstein’s jury acquittal on a section 12 allegation of inviting support for Hamas is a further reminder. No published judgment, jury directions or reasons have been located, so the verdict cannot be over-read.⁵³ The prosecution did not secure a conviction on the case it brought. That is the public record.
Likewise, anti-Israel or anti-Zionist expression is not automatically hostility towards Jewish people. Antisemitism, threats and violence must be opposed on their own facts; criticism of a state, army, company or political ideology must not be recast as racial or religious hatred without proof.⁵⁴
After HHJ Altham’s ruling, Amnesty International UK welcomed the refusal to treat the Barclays Five as having been sentenced as terrorists. Its chief executive, Sacha Deshmukh, said that no one should be treated more harshly under the law because their crimes were part of a protest against genocide or any other issue. Amnesty called for Palestine Action’s proscription to be lifted and for an end to what it described as misuse of sweeping counter-terror powers against direct-action protesters.⁵⁵
The Government’s counter-terror policy and Parliament’s legislation create the legal framework within which independent courts decide individual cases. Criticism should therefore be directed precisely: at statutes, executive policy, prosecutorial choices, evidential practice and institutional safeguards—not at judges as a class and not at communities.
The remedies are practical:
ProblemRepairPolitical context used only for aggravationEstablish a symmetrical-context rule: relevant evidence of belief, motive, intention and alleged meaning is admissible unless exclusion is necessary and proportionateLate terrorism-connected findingsRequire written notice before trial; late notice only for genuinely new evidence; disclosure and a distinct hearingOpaque exclusion of contextual evidenceRequire written reasons when excluding it or withdrawing a statutory defence from a juryArms-export accountability gapPublish redacted IHL-risk assessments; permit effective judicial review; explain multinational programme exemptionsVague influence allegationsPublish ministerial meetings and lobbying contacts; strengthen donation, hospitality and conflict rules; maintain a public register of foreign-policy lobbyingCollective blameCriticise policy, money, access, decisions and evidence—not communities or identitiesThe answer is not retreat.
It is disciplined, collective and constitutional activism: peaceful mass presence; accurate reporting; legal observers; support for defendants; trade-union, faith and community alliances; public education; and sustained campaigning for de-proscription, procedural safeguards and human-rights-compliant protest law.The historical warning
Lancashire’s legal history gives the title a particular resonance. Sir James Altham sat with Judge Bromley at the 1612 Lancashire Assizes, when the Pendle witch trials ended in executions. There is no verified public evidence of any family link to HHJ Altham, and no serious argument should pretend otherwise.⁵⁶
But the historical warning remains:
Fear is not proof.
Association is not guilt.
A label is not a verdict.In 2018, excessive punishment was corrected.
In 2023, an extra procedural barrier was rejected.
In 2026, the terrorism label failed because the statutory threshold was not met.
That is not the end of democratic struggle. It is a reminder that law remains a site of contest—and that public pressure, solidarity and constitutional argument still matter.
Punish the proved act. Defend the democratic right to dissent. Do not let the label outrun the record.
Respect existence—or expect resistanc
Peaceful, democratic, collective resistance.Sources
- R v O’Hagan and others, Preston Crown Court, ruling on section 69 of the Sentencing Act 2020, paragraphs 1–2.
- O’Hagan, paragraphs 3–8 and 19–20.
- Free the Filton 25, “Judge moves to sentence Barclays spray-painters as terrorists, despite no terror charges”.
- O’Hagan, paragraphs 29–34.
- O’Hagan, paragraphs 35–43.
- Sentencing Act 2020, section 69; Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, Part 4; Sentencing Council, offences with a terrorist connection.
- Amnesty International UK, 27 July 2026; BBC News, 30 July 2026.
- Amnesty International UK, 15 June 2026; The Guardian, 12 June 2026; The Bristol Cable, 17 June 2026.
- O’Hagan, paragraphs 45–56.
- O’Hagan, paragraph 53.
- UNRWA Situation Report #126, 2 August 2024.
- UNRWA Situation Report #127, 9 August 2024; OCHA Situation Update #206, 19 August 2024; UNRWA Polio Warning, 20 August 2024.
- UNRWA Situation Report #232; UN News, 13 August 2026; PCHR; Al Mezan.
- BAE Systems, F-35 programme; BAE Samlesbury production.
- BAE, F-35 production at Samlesbury; Israeli F-35I reporting.
- Real Media, “Barclays 5 activists facing terrorist sentencing”, 27 July 2026.
- R v Wang [2005] UKHL 9.
- Free the Filton 25; Real Media; Further closing speeches.
- Middle East Eye, 18 August 2026.
- Criminal Damage Act 1971, section 5.
- Attorney General’s Reference on a Point of Law No 1 of 2023 [2024] EWCA Crim 243.
- Rajiv Menon KC’s published closing address.
- R v Wang [2005] UKHL 9.
- DPP v Ziegler [2021] UKSC 23.
- Hansard, Terrorism Bill, 14 December 1999.
- Ibid.
- Hansard, Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill, 19 September 2001; A v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] UKHL 56; Commons Library, pre-charge detention; Hansard, Prevention of Terrorism Bill, 1 March 2005; Hansard, 2008 Counter-Terrorism Bill; Prevent guidance; Hansard, 2025 proscription debate.
- UK Parliament, Magna Carta; UK Parliament, Bill of Rights 1689.
- Human Rights Act 1998, Schedule 1, Articles 10–11.
- Bayatyan v Armenia [GC]; UK Government, Military Service and Conscientious Objection.
- Strategic Export Licensing Criteria / CAEC response; R (CAAT) v Secretary of State for International Trade [2019] EWCA Civ 1020.
- UNHCR, Note on International Protection.
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1.
- Roberts and others v R [2018] EWCA Crim 2739; BBC News, 17 October 2018.
- R (Crown Prosecution Service) v Crown Court at Preston [2023] EWHC 1957 (Admin).
- O’Hagan, paragraphs 45–56.
- Lancashire Telegraph, 21 August 2026.
- Human Rights Act 1998, Schedule 1, Articles 10–11; CPS, Communications Offences.
- International Court of Justice, South Africa v Israel.
- News and Star, “Cumbrians arrested at ‘Barclays Five’ protest in Preston”, 24 August 2026.
- Terrorism Act 2000, section 13; Government guidance on proscribed organisations.
- Hansard, Terrorism Bill, 14 December 1999.
- Ibid.
- Hansard, Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill, 19 September 2001; A v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] UKHL 56; Commons Library, pre-charge detention; Hansard, Prevention of Terrorism Bill, 1 March 2005; Hansard, 2008 Counter-Terrorism Bill; Prevent guidance; Hansard, 2025 proscription debate.
- UK Parliament, Magna Carta; UK Parliament, Bill of Rights 1689.
- Human Rights Act 1998, Schedule 1, Articles 10–11.
- Bayatyan v Armenia [GC]; UK Government, Military Service and Conscientious Objection.
- Strategic Export Licensing Criteria / CAEC response; R (CAAT) v Secretary of State for International Trade [2019] EWCA Civ 1020.
- UNHCR, Note on International Protection.
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1.
- Hansard, Proscribed Organisations Amendment Order 2025.
- Supreme Court: R (Ammori) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, UKSC/2026/0099.
- Jewish News, 22 August 2026; Jewish Chronicle, 21 August 2026.
- The Guardian, Australian Farhat reporting, 19 August 2026.
- Amnesty International UK, 21 August 2026.
- Lancaster Castle, Lancashire Witch Trials.
Disclaimer:
#accountability #constitutionality #Democracy #History #humanRights #impunity #lawfare #news #palestineAction #politics #RuleOfLaw
This article is political and legal commentary based on material available at publication, hence not legal advice, nor does it create a solicitor–client relationship so should not be relied upon in relation to any individual case, proposed protest, criminal charge, sentencing hearing or appeal. Campaign, activist and media reports are identified as such and allegations and disputed matters are not findings of fact. Affected readers should consult a qualified solicitor or barrister about their own circumstances. -
EXPOSING THE UK STATE’S ONGOING WITCH-HUNT OF DIRECT ACTION, PROTEST LAW & PALESTINE SOLIDARITY: FROM RULING THE WAVES TO WAIVING THE RULES
Summary
The study below begins with the Barclays Five and a precise question: what may the state add after a jury has returned its verdict?Starting from Preston Crown Court, it then takes a deep dive to find, then follow the thread running through Filton, Elbit Systems, Lancashire’s BAe Systems F-35 supply chain, jury independence, conscientious objection, protest law and MP’s post-9/11 promises recorded in Hansard.
It is not an argument that protest places anyone above the law. It is an invitation to look more closely at whether the law applies its labels, safeguards and burdens of proof equally, and, if not, why not?
The toxic danger is lawfare—not only an individual prosecution, but the gradual conversion of exceptional counter-terror language into an ordinary response to political dissent.
Read it slowly. The details matter. So do the gaps between them.
Evidence before labels.
EXPOSING THE UK STATE’S ONGOING WITCH-HUNT OF DIRECT ACTION, PROTEST LAW & PALESTINE SOLIDARITY_ FROM RULING THE WAVES TO WAIVING THE RULES _ _ truthaholicsDownload
Due process before punishment.
Respect existence—or expect resistance.EXPOSING THE UK STATE’S ONGOING WITCH-HUNT OF DIRECT ACTION, PROTEST LAW & PALESTINE SOLIDARITY: FROM RULING THE WAVES TO WAIVING THE RULES
Proud Preston is where the label meets the statute. No charge. No count. No label.
Truthaholics’ civil-liberties, speaking truth to power, approach begins with a simple question: is the UK state itself following the rule of law it claims to defend?
Punish the offence proved. Do not enlarge it by hindsight, ideology or unevidenced association.
Preston Crown Court has become a recurring site in the law of protest—not because every protest case deserves the same outcome, but because the same constitutional question keeps returning:
What may the state add beyond the act charged, the procedure followed and the verdict returned?
On 15 June 2026, Brendan O’Hagan, Amanda Kelly, Humeera Atiq Nisar, Mohammed Malik and Alma Yaniv were convicted before HHJ Philip Parry at Preston Crown Court of criminal damage following the 5 August 2024 action at a Barclays bank branch in Burnley. The official ruling records damaged windows, red paint and £177,337 in loss, rising to just over £200,000 including VAT. Sentence was adjourned to 4 September 2026.¹
No terrorism offence had been charged. No terrorism count had gone to the jury. No jury was asked to decide whether the conduct was terrorism.
Then, on 22 June—seven days after conviction—HHJ Parry directed the parties to make submissions on whether section 69 of the Sentencing Act 2020 applied. The Crown filed its written case on 8 July. The matter was transferred to HHJ Altham because the trial judge was not authorised to determine terrorist cases.² That sequence was the basis for legitimate alarm.
Free the Filton 25 captured the concern in its pre-hearing headline: “Judge moves to sentence Barclays spray-painters as terrorists, despite no terror charges.”³ That was campaign advocacy, not a judicial description. But the constitutional question was real: can an exceptional terrorism label emerge after a criminal-damage verdict where it was neither charged nor put to the jury?
The defence argued that the defendants had been denied notice, a preparatory hearing, procedural safeguards and the ability to assess their full legal peril before trial. It also argued that a section 69 finding would aggravate sentence for an offence more serious in substance than the one the jury had decided.⁴
HHJ Altham rejected those arguments. He accepted the Crown’s case that evidence relied upon for section 69—four defendants’ claimed Palestine Action affiliation, training and participation in a wider campaign—only became admissible through the defendants’ trial evidence. He held that section 69 does not create a separate offence or alter the statutory maximum sentence.⁵
That conclusion deserves respectful disagreement and democratic scrutiny. A terrorism-connected finding may not create a fresh count, but it can alter the public meaning, sentencing consequences and lasting stigma of a conviction. Due process is not only about the statutory maximum. It is about notice, predictability, informed legal advice and the integrity of jury trial.
What section 69 could have changed
The consequences explain why the application caused such concern.
A terrorism-connection finding is not a new conviction, but section 69 requires the sentencing court to treat it as an aggravating factor and state that publicly. It may also engage a distinct terrorist-offender regime, including altered release arrangements and long-term police-notification duties. The precise consequences depend on the sentence imposed and the statutory provisions engaged. They should not be caricatured as a legal requirement to renounce political beliefs or “show remorse” by abandoning a cause.
For adults, notification obligations may last 10, 15 or 30 years, depending principally on sentence length. They can require notification of addresses, contact details, vehicles, financial accounts and identity documents, including relevant changes.⁶
The concern was not invented. Amnesty International UK described the prospect of treating the Barclays convictions as terrorism as disproportionate. A senior civil-liberties lawyer told the BBC that the post-verdict process was unfair because terrorism had not been put to the jury. The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, took the legally distinct position that judges have authority to make terrorist-connection findings at sentence.⁷
These are competing assessments. One is a civil-liberties critique; the other describes legal authority. Neither should be misreported as the other.
The relevant comparator is the Filton Four. On 12 June 2026, Mr Justice Johnson found a terrorism connection in criminal-damage convictions arising from direct action at Elbit Systems’ Filton factory. Amnesty reported that the four were sentenced on that basis; contemporary reporting stated that the finding affected release arrangements and imposed 15-year notification requirements.⁸
That is why the Barclays section 69 hearing mattered. It was not merely a dispute over a label. It concerned the legal and practical consequences of importing a terrorism finding into an ordinary criminal-damage sentence.
Yet the ruling held a vital line.
The Crown’s application failed. HHJ Altham found that, in the statutory context of terrorism legislation, the Barclays damage did not amount to “serious damage.” The five remain liable to sentence for criminal damage—not terrorism.⁹
No charge. No jury finding. No section 69 label. The statute held.
The court held that the “quality of the act” matters. Financial value is not decisive; lower-value damage could theoretically be serious where it affected sensitive infrastructure relied upon by many people. The ruling distinguished Barclays from R v Head and others, involving an Elbit-related arms-manufacturing site, specialist equipment including drones and damage exceeding £1 million.
That distinction may be legally proper. But it exposes an imbalance.
When used by the stateWhen offered by a defendantCampaign association can indicate political purposeBelief in a humanitarian emergency can be treated as irrelevantTarget sensitivity can support exceptional punishmentA target’s connection to arms supply or alleged IHL violations can be excludedPublic impact can form part of the “quality” of an actAn intention to avoid persons and expose institutions can be discountedPolitical meaning can support aggravationPolitical context can be denied a role in motive, intention or mitigationA court may conclude that such explanations do not establish lawful excuse. That is not the same as saying they are irrelevant to belief, intention, alleged intimidation or sentence.
At paragraph 53, HHJ Altham said only what he would have noted had it become necessary: Barclays itself was not a section of the public, although customers and high-street users could potentially be. That was not a finding that anyone had actually been intimidated.¹⁰
If political context is relevant to aggravation, it is relevant to explanation.
The context the law cannot erase
The Barclays and Filton actions occurred in August 2024. Contemporary reporting matters—not as hindsight, but as part of the factual environment from which a defendant’s belief may have formed.
On 2 August 2024, UNRWA had publicly reported aerial, land and maritime bombardment, civilian casualties, mass displacement, destroyed homes and public infrastructure, and more than 600,000 Palestinian children out of school.¹¹ It subsequently reported at least 39,677 Palestinians killed and 91,645 injured since 7 October 2023, citing Gaza’s Ministry of Health. OCHA reported August evacuation orders affecting an estimated 213,000 people and fuel shortages that postponed surgery, disrupted ambulances and threatened healthcare, water and sanitation. UNRWA and medical agencies warned that a confirmed polio case endangered around 640,000 children under ten.¹²
No responsible writer can claim to know what proportion of any jury had seen this material; there is no evidence for a fixed figure. But the scale of civilian killing, displacement and destruction had generated growing global public outrage, including concern that the violence was not being restrained and that external military support was enabling its continuation.
That does not prove what any defendant knew. It does not create a statutory defence. It establishes the publicly available world in which a defendant’s belief may have formed.
Later UN and humanitarian reporting documents continuing attacks on healthcare, service collapse, extensive structural damage, displacement and water deprivation.¹³ Those reports are humanitarian documentation—not findings determining British criminal liability or a final judicial finding of genocide.
Context may explain belief and motive. It does not automatically excuse conduct. But it must not be transformed into proof of terrorist intent, dangerousness or collective guilt.
The Lancashire F-35 chain
The Lancashire connection is real, local and material.
BAe Systems’ Samlesbury facility manufactures and assembles the rear section of every F-35 Lightning II in the global programme: the aft fuselage, vertical tails and horizontal tails. BAe describes its overall F-35 contribution as approximately 13–15 percent of each aircraft, excluding propulsion.¹⁴
The completed rear section enters Lockheed Martin’s global final-assembly chain at Fort Worth, Texas. Israel operates the F-35I “Adir”, its nationally modified F-35 variant; Israeli F-35Is have been used in Gaza operations.¹⁵
StageWhat is establishedWhy it mattersEvidential limitSamlesburyBAe manufactures and assembles the F-35 rear fuselage and tail assemblies for every aircraft in the global programmeA Lancashire factory contributes to the worldwide F-35 fleetIt does not identify a particular component with a particular attackGlobal assemblySamlesbury-built rear sections enter Lockheed Martin’s F-35 final-assembly chainThe supply chain is international, but the UK-made component remains materialIt is not a direct shipment from Lancashire to the Israeli Air ForceIsraeli F-35I fleetIsrael operates the F-35I and has used it in Gaza operationsPolitical concern about the programme is neither abstract nor geographically remoteIt does not establish individual criminal liability by BAe, workers, ministers or othersUK licensing policyIn September 2024, the Government identified a clear risk that some military exports to Israel might facilitate serious IHL violations, suspended about 30 licences, but retained a conditional global F-35 exemptionGovernment acknowledged the legal sensitivity of arms supply while preserving the multinational F-35 programmeThis policy does not create a private right to damage property or determine liability in a protest caseThis is not a claim that BAe, its workforce, Barclays, ministers or any other company has committed an international crime. Nor does it make criminal damage lawful.
It establishes a narrower point:
When a factory near Preston manufactures rear sections and tail assemblies for every F-35—including the global programme from which Israel’s F-35I fleet is assembled—public political concern about that fact is neither irrational, abstract nor geographically remote.
The public-law setting of ongoing arms production involving BAe and Elbit differs from local land-use and fossil-fuel disputes, including Cuadrilla. But neither the scale of an industry nor the gravity of alleged harm creates a licence to commit crime.
Equally, courts should not create a hierarchy of permissible conscience: concern over arms exports dismissed as politically irrelevant while “security”, “sensitivity” and campaign affiliation are treated as relevant to exceptional punishment.
Jurors, Filton and due process
Campaign and activist reporting has stated that, during the Preston June trial, two jurors asked HHJ Parry whether they could acquit “according to their conscience”, and that he told them they could not.¹⁶
That account should not be overstated. No approved transcript, jury note or judicial direction establishing the exchange has been located. It must therefore remain an attributed report, not an established courtroom fact.
The legal position is narrower than either slogan suggests. A jury cannot be directed to convict; R v Wang is clear on that. But jurors must try the case according to the evidence and the judge’s legal directions.¹⁷ Jury independence must not be mythologised, but neither must it become a judicially managed conveyor belt to a guilty verdict.
The Filton closing speeches belong in that space.
They are not judgments. They are not evidence. The available texts are campaign-published or activist-media documents, not approved court transcripts. They must be read as attributed advocacy—not as findings adopted by a judge or jury.
Publicly available material includes Rajiv Menon KC’s closing address for Charlotte Head; self-delivered retrial speeches by Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Jordan Devlin and Zoe Rogers; Tom Wainwright’s closing address for Samuel Corner; and campaign-published speeches for Sean Middleborough, Aleksandra Herbich, Julija Brigadirova and William Plastow.¹⁸
Complete verified public texts have not been located for every defendant in every Filton trial, including Hannah Davidson, Ian Sanders, Madeleine Norman and Teuta Hoxha. That absence should be acknowledged, not filled with inference.
Sean Middleborough’s defence reportedly stressed that Palestine Action membership was not evidence of guilt for criminal damage or violent disorder. Aleksandra Herbich’s counsel argued that food shopping and cooking did not prove intentional assistance or encouragement of violent disorder or criminal damage.¹⁹
That is not sentiment. It is criminal law:
- What did this defendant do?
- What did this defendant know?
- What did this defendant intend?
- What offence did this defendant intentionally assist or encourage?
- Has the Crown proved that case beyond reasonable doubt?
The answer cannot lawfully be: “They belonged to the wrong movement.”
The Filton speeches placed conduct in the context of Elbit Systems, Gaza, British arms production, Palestinian suffering and the claimed failure of ordinary democratic routes. That context may be relevant to belief, motive, intention, mitigation and public understanding.
But legal precision matters. A sincere political or moral motive does not automatically establish a defence to criminal damage, aggravated burglary or violent disorder.
Section 5 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 provides limited lawful-excuse protections, principally concerning honest belief in consent or immediate protection of property, rights or interests in property.²⁰ In 2024, the Court of Appeal confirmed that the perceived merits, urgency or importance of a political cause cannot simply be imported into the statutory meaning of relevant “circumstances.”²¹
Conscience may explain conduct; it does not automatically legalise it. Political belief may be relevant evidence; it is not a substitute for the elements of an offence or defence.
Rajiv Menon KC’s published closing address invoked Bushell’s Case, arising from the prosecution of Quaker preachers William Penn and William Mead in 1670, after jurors were punished for refusing to return the verdict demanded by the court.
Menon’s point must be stated accurately. He said the judge had withdrawn lawful excuse from the jury’s consideration, but expressly said he was not asking jurors to disregard legal directions. He argued that no judge may direct a jury to convict.²²
The modern authority is R v Wang: there are no circumstances in which a judge may direct a jury to convict.²³ That does not create a free-standing “jury equity” defence or entitle counsel to invite jurors to ignore the law. The judge directs on law; the jury decides guilt.
Peaceful expression and assembly remain protected by Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In DPP v Ziegler, the Supreme Court held that deliberate obstruction during protest could, on its facts, engage those rights and a statutory lawful-excuse analysis for a highway-obstruction charge.²⁴
Ziegler concerned protest outside the DSEI arms fair, not criminal damage. It does not establish universal immunity for offences committed during protest.
From emergency to infrastructure
When the Terrorism Bill was introduced in 1999, then Home Secretary and MP for Blackburn, Jack Straw described terrorism as serious violence for political, religious or ideological ends—premeditated conduct aimed at creating a climate of extreme fear. He said counter-terror powers should approximate ordinary criminal procedure, be used only where necessary, include safeguards and comply with international law.²⁵
He also assured Parliament that the Bill was not designed to threaten peaceful protest, demonstrations or ordinary domestic activist groups. MPs warned that broad definitions could reach environmental direct action, anti-colonial campaigns and international solidarity movements.²⁶
That constitutional promise was not extinguished by 11 September 2001.
The record is not a crude tale of every power always increasing. The 2001 foreign-national detention regime was declared incompatible with Convention rights; the 28-day detention maximum later lapsed; and the proposed 42-day reserve power did not become law.²⁷
The deeper problem is different. Temporary emergency mechanisms gave way to a standing counter-terror architecture: preventative duties, intelligence-led policing, broad speech and association offences, proscription, financial disruption, port powers and a widening tendency to frame political dissent as a security question.
LEGISLATION and assuranceSafeguard promisedWhat happenedWhy it matters2001: Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security BillMeasures described as proportionate, reasonable, reviewable and responsive to a post-9/11 emergencyThe House of Lords quashed the Article 5 derogation and declared the foreign-national detention regime incompatible with Convention rightsExecutive necessity claims require real judicial scrutiny2005: Prevention of Terrorism BillControl orders said to strike the “right balance” between liberty and securityThe detention regime was replaced by continuing restrictions; control orders were later replaced by TPIMsExceptional prevention moved beyond criminal conviction2006: Terrorism ActThe 28-day pre-charge limit was subject to annual renewalThe 28-day power lasted until January 2011, then lapsed and reverted to 14 daysSunset clauses can work—if Parliament allows them to expire2008: Counter-Terrorism BillProposed 42-day reserve power was framed as exceptional, temporary and judicially supervisedIt did not become lawSafeguard language is no substitute for demonstrated necessity2015 onwards: Prevent dutySpecified bodies were required to prevent people being drawn into terrorism; guidance promised a consistent and proportionate thresholdPrevent became a standing duty across education, health, local government, prisons and policing; rights groups and academic research report a chilling effectCivic institutions can become sites of political surveillance and self-censorship2025 onwards: Palestine Action proscriptionGovernment said proscription would not diminish the right to lawful protestParliamentarians, rights groups and scholars warned of chill; legality and proportionality are now before the Supreme Court in AmmoriThe Article 10 and 11 boundary is live: when does serious property damage become terrorism?This is the golden thread: not that the law gives protesters a licence to damage property, but that the legal system must not strip political defendants of relevant motive and context while allowing the state to convert association, symbolism and dissent into proxies for terrorist intent.
The 2001 emergency did not simply continue unchanged. Some of its sharpest detention powers ended. But its governing habit endured:
Risk before proof. Prevention before trial. Association before individual responsibility. Security language before political explanation.
That is classic authoritarian drift. “Fascism” is a historically specific term and should not be used as a factual label for every illiberal policy. The evidence-based warning is that democracy degrades when exceptional powers become normal administrative tools, when rights depend on approved opinion and when state security narratives crowd out individual proof and open justice.
For a state that often presents its constitutional tradition as a model of democracy and the rule of law, even fount of democracy for the world as some claim, the proper response to conscientious opposition to war, arms policy or corporate interests connected with armed conflict cannot be to equate dissent with disloyalty.
Magna Carta’s enduring proposition is that government is not above law. The Bill of Rights 1689 affirmed the right of petition and protection against governmental interference with it.²⁸ Articles 10 and 11 protect peaceful expression and assembly, including some deliberately disruptive protest, but they are qualified rights. They neither authorise violence nor create a general immunity from prosecution for criminal damage or other offences.²⁹
Nor should Article 9 conscientious-objection protection be overstated. It confirms that a serious and insurmountable conflict between military service and conscience may attract human-rights protection; it does not create a free-standing defence to civilian direct action.³⁰
The public-law answer to concern about warfare, arms exports and commercial incentives is lawful scrutiny: transparent decision-making, parliamentary supervision, effective judicial review and faithful application of export-licensing rules requiring refusal where there is a clear risk that equipment may be used to commit or facilitate serious IHL violations.³¹
This is not abstract. UNHCR identifies conflict, persecution and denial of human rights as interconnected root causes of refugee displacement. That does not support treating refugees, asylum seekers and all migration as one phenomenon.³²
Human rights are universal—not favours granted only to the politically approved. But universality entails equal legal protection and equal legal restraint.³³
The integrity of justice requires evidence-based allegations, individual criminal responsibility, independent courts and opposition to any attempt—by state, corporation, movement or individual—to manipulate, corrupt or pervert legal process.
Three Preston moments
The Altham record is not a one-judge theory of protest law. It combines three different legal chapters, concerning three different limits on state power.
2018: proportionality
HHJ Altham gave three anti-fracking protesters immediate prison sentences for public nuisance arising from action at Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site. The Court of Appeal quashed those sentences as manifestly excessive and substituted conditional discharges.³⁴
The principle was proportionality: punishment must fit the offence proved.
The case later attracted attention concerning his alleged family connections with oil-and-gas-related business interests. A conduct complaint followed. The narrower legal point remains decisive: the appeal succeeded because the sentences were manifestly excessive, not because the Court of Appeal created immunity for environmental protest or found judicial misconduct.
2022–23: statutory procedure
In a CCRC-referred case following a guilty plea, HHJ Altham, by then Recorder of Preston, declined to require a separate application to vacate the plea before the Crown Court could hear the appeal. The CPS sought judicial review and lost.³⁵
The principle was statutory procedure: courts should not add a barrier Parliament did not enact.
2026: exceptional proof
The Crown sought a section 69 terrorism-connected finding after a criminal-damage conviction. HHJ Altham held that the necessary “serious damage” threshold had not been established.³⁶
The principle was statutory restraint: exceptional labels require exceptional proof.
None of this means judges are always right, or that protest is beyond criminal law. It means the law must justify its coercive power.
Outside the court
Outside Preston Crown Court, the legal arguments had another civic audience.
Hundreds of pro-Palestine demonstrators from Preston and across the North West gathered with Palestinian flags and signs including “Free Palestine”, “Support the Barclays 5” and “Direct action is not terrorism”. Lancashire Police publicly acknowledged both the lawful right to protest and the need to preserve order and court business.³⁷
That gathering was not evidence in the case. It did not need to be.
The right to speak, assemble and dissent does not depend on winning a court case, gaining state approval or restricting oneself to language the powerful find comfortable. Articles 10 and 11 protect robust political expression and peaceful assembly—including speech that offends, shocks or disturbs.³⁸
That includes opposition to Zionism as a political ideology; criticism of Israeli state policy, military conduct, British arms exports and corporate finance; and increasing arguments that governments or companies stop being actively complicit in genocide and other international war crimes.
The legal position should be stated accurately. The ICJ proceedings concerning South Africa’s genocide case against Israel remain unresolved on their merits.³⁹ But people do not require a final judgment before they may examine evidence, witness virtually live-streamed mass-killing of displaced civilians, then argue that genocide is occurring, demand investigation, campaign for sanctions and ceasing the flow of arms supply, and organise for Palestinian liberation, so those victims can enjoy the same rights, autonomy and sovereignty as others.
Criticism of Israel, Zionism or corporate complicity is not the same as hostility towards Jewish people, as ethnically, Palestinians are definitively, semites. Antisemitism must be opposed without qualification. So must the conflation of Jewish identity with the acts of a state, or of anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
Arrest is not verdict
Preston arrest watch
Status: 24 August 2026. Seven people arrested outside Preston Crown Court on 21 August on suspicion of supporting a proscribed organisation under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 were reported as released under investigation. Two further arrests were reported in separate suspected criminal-damage and assault matters; no verified later status for those two individuals has been located. Arrest is not charge, and charge is not conviction.⁴⁰
Those are allegations, not convictions. They concern individual facts and specific legal powers; they do not define the larger Palestine-solidarity gathering.
Palestine Action is proscribed. Section 13 concerns displaying an article in public in circumstances that arouse reasonable suspicion that a person is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation.⁴¹ It does not create a general offence of being pro-Palestine, anti-Zionist, anti-war, anti-Barclays or anti-government.
The democratic task is to hold that line.
Do not treat Palestine solidarity as suspicious by default. Do not treat every direct-action campaign as terrorism. Do not use concern about antisemitism to silence legitimate criticism of Israel. And do not allow protection of free expression to excuse antisemitism, threats, harassment, racism, assault or unlawful support for a proscribed organisation.
Rights are strongest when they are defended universally and applied precisely.
Direct action and democratic change
History shows that direct action can expose a democratic failure when ordinary political channels have stopped listening. It does not automatically make unlawful conduct lawful; it creates pressure that institutions must answer.
That is the point of extra-institutional pressure: public action interrupts settled routines, brings suppressed grievances into view and forces law and government to confront principles they claim to uphold.
In Ackerman’s terms, sustained popular mobilisation can contribute to a “constitutional moment”—a period in which public pressure helps reshape the constitutional order. That is an analytical possibility, not a guarantee of vindication.
Past movements for suffrage, civil rights and decolonisation show that conduct once condemned can later influence the rights now treated as foundational. But history does not retrospectively legalise every act, and no campaign is entitled to assume that its own cause will be vindicated.
The defensible claim is narrower—and stronger:
Direct action can reveal the gap between positive law, government policy and fundamental justice. Democracy must be able to hear that challenge without abandoning individual proof, due process or the rule of law.
From emergency to infrastructure
When the Terrorism Bill was introduced in 1999, Jack Straw described terrorism as serious violence for political, religious or ideological ends—premeditated conduct aimed at creating a climate of extreme fear. He said counter-terror powers should approximate ordinary criminal procedure, be used only where necessary, include safeguards and comply with international law.⁴²
He also assured Parliament that the Bill was not designed to threaten peaceful protest, demonstrations or ordinary domestic activist groups. MPs warned that broad definitions could reach environmental direct action, anti-colonial campaigns and international solidarity movements.⁴³
That constitutional promise was not extinguished by 11 September 2001.
The record is not a crude tale of every power always increasing. The 2001 foreign-national detention regime was declared incompatible with Convention rights; the 28-day detention maximum later lapsed; and the proposed 42-day reserve power did not become law.⁴⁴
The deeper problem is different. Temporary emergency mechanisms gave way to a standing counter-terror architecture: preventative duties, intelligence-led policing, broad speech and association offences, proscription, financial disruption, port powers and a widening tendency to frame political dissent as a security question.
This is the golden thread: not that the law gives protesters a licence to damage property, but that the legal system must not strip political defendants of relevant motive and context while allowing the state to convert association, symbolism and dissent into proxies for terrorist intent.
The 2001 emergency did not simply continue unchanged. Some of its sharpest detention powers ended. But its governing habit endured:
Risk before proof. Prevention before trial. Association before individual responsibility. Security language before political explanation.
That is an authoritarian drift. “Fascism” is a historically specific term and should not be used as a factual label for every illiberal policy. The evidence-based warning is that democracy degrades when exceptional powers become normal administrative tools, when rights depend on approved opinion and when state security narratives crowd out individual proof and open justice.
For a state that often presents its constitutional tradition as a model of democracy and the rule of law, the proper response to conscientious opposition to war, arms policy or corporate interests connected with armed conflict cannot be to equate dissent with disloyalty.
Magna Carta’s enduring proposition is that government is not above law. The Bill of Rights 1689 affirmed the right of petition and protection against governmental interference with it.⁴⁵ Articles 10 and 11 protect peaceful expression and assembly, including some deliberately disruptive protest, but they are qualified rights. They neither authorise violence nor create a general immunity from prosecution for criminal damage or other offences.⁴⁶
Nor should Article 9 conscientious-objection protection be overstated. It confirms that a serious and insurmountable conflict between military service and conscience may attract human-rights protection; it does not create a free-standing defence to civilian direct action.⁴⁷
The public-law answer to concern about warfare, arms exports and commercial incentives is lawful scrutiny: transparent decision-making, parliamentary supervision, effective judicial review and faithful application of export-licensing rules requiring refusal where there is a clear risk that equipment may be used to commit or facilitate serious IHL violations.⁴⁸
This is not abstract. UNHCR identifies conflict, persecution and denial of human rights as interconnected root causes of refugee displacement. That does not support treating refugees, asylum seekers and all migration as one phenomenon.⁴⁹
Human rights are universal—not favours granted only to the politically approved. But universality entails equal legal protection and equal legal restraint.⁵⁰
The integrity of justice requires evidence-based allegations, individual criminal responsibility, independent courts and opposition to any attempt—by state, corporation, lobby, movement or individual—to manipulate, corrupt or pervert legal process.
Remedies: repair, not panic
The 2025 proscription debate revealed the present division. Government argued that Palestine Action met the statutory terrorism definition. Opponents argued that ordinary criminal law already addressed criminal damage, violent disorder and aggravated burglary, and that proscription would chill dissent.⁵¹
The Supreme Court has granted Huda Ammori permission to appeal on one ground against the Court of Appeal’s ruling concerning proscription. The hearing is listed for 4–5 November 2026. It is a separate public-law appeal, not an appeal in the Barclays criminal case; proscription remains in force unless and until lawfully changed.⁵²
Tony Greenstein’s jury acquittal on a section 12 allegation of inviting support for Hamas is a further reminder. No published judgment, jury directions or reasons have been located, so the verdict cannot be over-read.⁵³ The prosecution did not secure a conviction on the case it brought. That is the public record.
Likewise, anti-Israel or anti-Zionist expression is not automatically hostility towards Jewish people. Antisemitism, threats and violence must be opposed on their own facts; criticism of a state, army, company or political ideology must not be recast as racial or religious hatred without proof.⁵⁴
After HHJ Altham’s ruling, Amnesty International UK welcomed the refusal to treat the Barclays Five as having been sentenced as terrorists. Its chief executive, Sacha Deshmukh, said that no one should be treated more harshly under the law because their crimes were part of a protest against genocide or any other issue. Amnesty called for Palestine Action’s proscription to be lifted and for an end to what it described as misuse of sweeping counter-terror powers against direct-action protesters.⁵⁵
The Government’s counter-terror policy and Parliament’s legislation create the legal framework within which independent courts decide individual cases. Criticism should therefore be directed precisely: at statutes, executive policy, prosecutorial choices, evidential practice and institutional safeguards—not at judges as a class and not at communities.
The remedies are practical:
ProblemRepairPolitical context used only for aggravationEstablish a symmetrical-context rule: relevant evidence of belief, motive, intention and alleged meaning is admissible unless exclusion is necessary and proportionateLate terrorism-connected findingsRequire written notice before trial; late notice only for genuinely new evidence; disclosure and a distinct hearingOpaque exclusion of contextual evidenceRequire written reasons when excluding it or withdrawing a statutory defence from a juryArms-export accountability gapPublish redacted IHL-risk assessments; permit effective judicial review; explain multinational programme exemptionsVague influence allegationsPublish ministerial meetings and lobbying contacts; strengthen donation, hospitality and conflict rules; maintain a public register of foreign-policy lobbyingCollective blameCriticise policy, money, access, decisions and evidence—not communities or identitiesThe answer is not retreat.
It is disciplined, collective and constitutional activism: peaceful mass presence; accurate reporting; legal observers; support for defendants; trade-union, faith and community alliances; public education; and sustained campaigning for de-proscription, procedural safeguards and human-rights-compliant protest law.The historical warning
Lancashire’s legal history gives the title a particular resonance. Sir James Altham sat with Judge Bromley at the 1612 Lancashire Assizes, when the Pendle witch trials ended in executions. There is no verified public evidence of any family link to HHJ Altham, and no serious argument should pretend otherwise.⁵⁶
But the historical warning remains:
Fear is not proof.
Association is not guilt.
A label is not a verdict.In 2018, excessive punishment was corrected.
In 2023, an extra procedural barrier was rejected.
In 2026, the terrorism label failed because the statutory threshold was not met.
That is not the end of democratic struggle. It is a reminder that law remains a site of contest—and that public pressure, solidarity and constitutional argument still matter.
Punish the proved act. Defend the democratic right to dissent. Do not let the label outrun the record.
Respect existence—or expect resistanc
Peaceful, democratic, collective resistance.Sources
- R v O’Hagan and others, Preston Crown Court, ruling on section 69 of the Sentencing Act 2020, paragraphs 1–2.
- O’Hagan, paragraphs 3–8 and 19–20.
- Free the Filton 25, “Judge moves to sentence Barclays spray-painters as terrorists, despite no terror charges”.
- O’Hagan, paragraphs 29–34.
- O’Hagan, paragraphs 35–43.
- Sentencing Act 2020, section 69; Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, Part 4; Sentencing Council, offences with a terrorist connection.
- Amnesty International UK, 27 July 2026; BBC News, 30 July 2026.
- Amnesty International UK, 15 June 2026; The Guardian, 12 June 2026; The Bristol Cable, 17 June 2026.
- O’Hagan, paragraphs 45–56.
- O’Hagan, paragraph 53.
- UNRWA Situation Report #126, 2 August 2024.
- UNRWA Situation Report #127, 9 August 2024; OCHA Situation Update #206, 19 August 2024; UNRWA Polio Warning, 20 August 2024.
- UNRWA Situation Report #232; UN News, 13 August 2026; PCHR; Al Mezan.
- BAE Systems, F-35 programme; BAE Samlesbury production.
- BAE, F-35 production at Samlesbury; Israeli F-35I reporting.
- Real Media, “Barclays 5 activists facing terrorist sentencing”, 27 July 2026.
- R v Wang [2005] UKHL 9.
- Free the Filton 25; Real Media; Further closing speeches.
- Middle East Eye, 18 August 2026.
- Criminal Damage Act 1971, section 5.
- Attorney General’s Reference on a Point of Law No 1 of 2023 [2024] EWCA Crim 243.
- Rajiv Menon KC’s published closing address.
- R v Wang [2005] UKHL 9.
- DPP v Ziegler [2021] UKSC 23.
- Hansard, Terrorism Bill, 14 December 1999.
- Ibid.
- Hansard, Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill, 19 September 2001; A v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] UKHL 56; Commons Library, pre-charge detention; Hansard, Prevention of Terrorism Bill, 1 March 2005; Hansard, 2008 Counter-Terrorism Bill; Prevent guidance; Hansard, 2025 proscription debate.
- UK Parliament, Magna Carta; UK Parliament, Bill of Rights 1689.
- Human Rights Act 1998, Schedule 1, Articles 10–11.
- Bayatyan v Armenia [GC]; UK Government, Military Service and Conscientious Objection.
- Strategic Export Licensing Criteria / CAEC response; R (CAAT) v Secretary of State for International Trade [2019] EWCA Civ 1020.
- UNHCR, Note on International Protection.
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1.
- Roberts and others v R [2018] EWCA Crim 2739; BBC News, 17 October 2018.
- R (Crown Prosecution Service) v Crown Court at Preston [2023] EWHC 1957 (Admin).
- O’Hagan, paragraphs 45–56.
- Lancashire Telegraph, 21 August 2026.
- Human Rights Act 1998, Schedule 1, Articles 10–11; CPS, Communications Offences.
- International Court of Justice, South Africa v Israel.
- News and Star, “Cumbrians arrested at ‘Barclays Five’ protest in Preston”, 24 August 2026.
- Terrorism Act 2000, section 13; Government guidance on proscribed organisations.
- Hansard, Terrorism Bill, 14 December 1999.
- Ibid.
- Hansard, Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill, 19 September 2001; A v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] UKHL 56; Commons Library, pre-charge detention; Hansard, Prevention of Terrorism Bill, 1 March 2005; Hansard, 2008 Counter-Terrorism Bill; Prevent guidance; Hansard, 2025 proscription debate.
- UK Parliament, Magna Carta; UK Parliament, Bill of Rights 1689.
- Human Rights Act 1998, Schedule 1, Articles 10–11.
- Bayatyan v Armenia [GC]; UK Government, Military Service and Conscientious Objection.
- Strategic Export Licensing Criteria / CAEC response; R (CAAT) v Secretary of State for International Trade [2019] EWCA Civ 1020.
- UNHCR, Note on International Protection.
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1.
- Hansard, Proscribed Organisations Amendment Order 2025.
- Supreme Court: R (Ammori) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, UKSC/2026/0099.
- Jewish News, 22 August 2026; Jewish Chronicle, 21 August 2026.
- The Guardian, Australian Farhat reporting, 19 August 2026.
- Amnesty International UK, 21 August 2026.
- Lancaster Castle, Lancashire Witch Trials.
Disclaimer:
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This article is political and legal commentary based on material available at publication, hence not legal advice, nor does it create a solicitor–client relationship so should not be relied upon in relation to any individual case, proposed protest, criminal charge, sentencing hearing or appeal. Campaign, activist and media reports are identified as such and allegations and disputed matters are not findings of fact. Affected readers should consult a qualified solicitor or barrister about their own circumstances.