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See the headline? That’s the question we must now ask, the more we learn about the UK government’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

That decision seems increasingly less like a defence of national safety and more like a defence of corporate assets – many of which aren’t even UK-owned.

Let’s start with the aircraft that were famously covered in red paint by Palestine Action campaigners. These are RAF Voyager planes, right? Well, yes — but crucially, they are not owned by the RAF or the UK government.

In fact, they’re owned by AirTanker Ltd, a private consortium of defence industry players backed by investment capital.

Dig into the corporate structure, and you find Polygon Global Partners LLP, a US hedge fund with significant stakes in the ownership chain.

So when activists took action at an RAF base, the “national assets” they targeted were, in reality, leased commercial property owned by a foreign investment firm.

Now consider the political pressure being exerted around these events.

In 2022, following damage to a Teledyne factory by Palestine Action, former head of the British Army and current House of Lords member Lord Richard Dannatt contacted the Home Office — not as a public servant, but as a paid adviser to the US defence contractor whose facility was targeted.

He urged the Tory then-government to act against Palestine Action and later followed up with a letter to the Labour front bench.

His lobbying came after Teledyne executives met him to express concern over the protests and their impacts — and shortly before the government announced the group’s proscription under terrorism laws in July 2024.

This is not a conspiracy theory. These are matters of public record, investigated and reported by reputable news organisations like The Guardian, whose journalists obtained court transcripts showing police officers were concerned about Dannatt’s attempted involvement in the case.

The general manager of Teledyne’s factory reportedly told police that Lord Dannatt “wanted to have some input” on the investigation. One officer replied that it would not be wise “to have a member of the House of Lords poking around in a live criminal case.”

The judge in the subsequent trial said there was no evidence Dannatt had interfered in the case — but by that point, he had already written to ministers, briefed the Home Secretary and promising to reassure Teledyne’s board in the US that “the threat from Palestine Action in the UK is being suitably addressed.”

Here’s what this means: A private US defence company, whose facility was damaged during a protest over UK-linked arms exports to Israel, enlisted its paid adviser in the House of Lords to pressure the British government into treating its critics as national security threats.

And the government obliged.

So when Suella Braverman, and later James Cleverly, justified the terrorism designation on grounds of “criminal damage” and “direct action” threatening public order, they weren’t just speaking as Home Secretaries.

They were responding to the complaints of a defence contractor’s lobbyist — who also happens to be a former Army chief and life peer in the legislature.

That brings us back to the question: who exactly is being protected here?

It seems to me that this has very little to do with keeping the public safe from terrorism, and everything to do with insulating private companies — especially arms dealers — from the consequences of political opposition.

That should worry us all.

If this is allowed to stand, what’s to stop future governments — emboldened by pliant legislation and willing lobbyists — from branding any sufficiently disruptive protest movement as “terrorism”?

Climate activists?

Labour organisers?

Whistleblowers?

If your actions are inconvenient to a powerful enough corporation, or to a ministerial donor, the precedent is now there: terrorism powers can be invoked.

This is not the same as saying Palestine Action’s tactics are universally supported.

They are not.

Their protests are direct and deliberately provocative. But that is not the point.

The point is that the criminal law already has mechanisms for dealing with trespass and damage.

So it seems the only reason to escalate this to terrorism status is political — or commercial.

We’re witnessing the convergence of profit and power.

Foreign-owned military infrastructure, leased to the British government, is being treated as sacrosanct — while public opposition to its use is being criminalised.

At the same time, defence firms facing scrutiny over their role in the arms trade are using their paid political connections to ensure that scrutiny is silenced — not by reasoned debate, but by brute legal force.

So, again: who is this government really protecting?

Not the public.

Not free speech.

Not accountability.

It’s protecting investment portfolios, arms contracts, and the comfort of those whose grip on policy runs deeper than most voters will ever realise. Am I right?

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