Right to Protest is increasingly concerned that the conduct of the police in relation to the Defend Our Juries, Lift the Ban campaign represents a serious failure to discharge their statutory duties under counter-terrorism law. The campaign has openly encouraged members of the public stating “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action” and to hold those signs publicly until arrested in order to challenge the proscription of Palestine Action. They have also encouraged supporters to display posters with the same wording from their home windows. Despite the obvious legal risks associated with encouraging expressions of support for a proscribed organisation, the campaign website remains publicly accessible and continues actively promoting these actions to the public.

Astonishingly, Defend Our Juries has gone further still. On its website and social media platforms, the campaign has circulated what amounts to a recruitment video, openly glorifying convictions arising from publicly expressing support for Palestine Action and encouraging others to follow the same course. In other words, material remains publicly available which celebrates criminal convictions connected to a proscribed organisation while inviting further participation in the same conduct.

Yet the police, who claim such expressions amount to terrorism offences, have taken no meaningful steps to prevent members of the public from being encouraged into committing them, nor have they taken any action to remove these materials encouraging terrorism offences. This is despite Right to Protest Ltd writing directly to the Metropolitan Police to notify them of the existence of these materials, warning that vulnerable members of the public may be drawn into committing terrorism offences, and reminding the authorities of their statutory Prevent duty under section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. The continued failure to act in the face of such warnings raises serious questions as to whether the authorities are properly discharging their statutory safeguarding obligations under the United Kingdom’s counter-terrorism framework.

This is not simply a matter of policing discretion. The police possess clear statutory powers under counter-terrorism legislation to intervene where material encourages terrorism offences. More importantly, they are subject to the Prevent duty under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, which requires public authorities to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. If expressions of support for Palestine Action genuinely constitute offences under the Terrorism Act 2000, then the police are under a positive legal obligation to take reasonable steps to prevent members of the public from being encouraged into committing those offences. Instead, the opposite appears to be occurring. Material openly encouraging conduct said to constitute terrorism offences remains online, while individuals who follow that encouragement are subsequently arrested. This creates the appearance of deliberately mixed messaging which risks misleading members of the public into committing strict liability terrorism offences. Such conduct represents a serious abuse of policing powers and begins, in substance, to resemble what would colloquially be described as entrapment.

Responsibility for ensuring compliance with these statutory duties does not rest solely with the police. The Home Secretary also bears responsibility for ensuring that policing bodies properly discharge their duties under the Prevent framework and wider counter-terrorism legislation. Where authorities permit material encouraging terrorism offences to remain publicly accessible while subsequently arresting those who act upon it, serious questions arise as to whether those safeguarding obligations are being fulfilled at all.

Right to Protest’s concerns about the conduct of the Metropolitan Police were significantly heightened by events following the High Court’s judgment on 13 February 2026 in the judicial review concerning the proscription of Palestine Action. The High Court held that the proscription was unlawful, but ordered that the ban would remain in force pending appeal. As a result, Palestine Action remained a proscribed organisation in law, and expressions of support for it therefore continued to fall within offences under the Terrorism Act 2000.

Following the judgment, the Metropolitan Police issued a public statement confirming that expressing support for Palestine Action remained a criminal offence, but indicated that officers would not arrest individuals at the time the offence was committed. Instead, they stated that police would gather evidence for arrest at a later stage. In practice this meant that individuals could stand in front of police officers holding placards expressing support for Palestine Action without being arrested or warned that their conduct was unlawful, only to face arrest later.

This approach, combined with the High Court’s ruling that the proscription decision itself had been unlawful, created an extraordinary level of confusion for members of the public. A lay observer could reasonably conclude that expressing support for Palestine Action might now be lawful following the judgment. Yet at the same time police maintained that the conduct remained criminal while declining to actually intervene when it occurred.

Right to Protest raised serious concerns with the Metropolitan Police in correspondence that such mixed messaging risked misleading members of the public into committing a strict liability offence under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000—an offence which does not require proof of intent. In other words, an individual who mistakenly believes their conduct to be lawful, because of the signals being sent by the authorities themselves, may still commit the offence (watch Right to Protest’s video which contains an explanation of the section 13 offence).

Despite these warnings, the Metropolitan Police declined to change their policy and again refused to remove unlawful material encouraging support for a proscribed terrorist organisation, Palestine Action, from the internet.

On 26th March the Metropolitan Police abruptly reversed their earlier position and announced that they would begin arresting individuals for expressing support for Palestine Action again, a complete U-turn from their previous public statements. On 11 April 2026 police implemented this change in approach during a Defend Our Juries protest in Parliament Square, arresting more than 520 individuals holding placards stating “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Prior to this shift in policing practice, attendance at similar events had become increasingly smaller and arrests outside the High Court during the judicial review proceedings had been minimal. The sudden escalation in arrests following the change in police policy strongly suggests that the confusing and contradictory signals given to the public contributed directly to large numbers of individuals unwittingly placing themselves at risk of criminal liability, precisely the outcome repeatedly warned of by Right to Protest Ltd in its correspondence with the Metropolitan Police.

Taken together, the sequence of events demonstrates that the concerns raised by Right to Protest were not speculative but well-founded. Despite repeated warnings that the policy of allowing material encouraging the public to engage in terrorism offences, and allowing public encouragement of support for a proscribed organisation while delaying arrests would create confusion and expose members of the public to strict liability terrorism offences, the authorities failed to intervene. The subsequent mass arrests therefore stand as powerful evidence that those warnings were justified.

Below is the complete correspondence between Right to Protest Ltd and the Metropolitan Police, as well as between Right to Protest Ltd and the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood. Despite concerns being repeatedly raised, the police have continued to allow material encouraging conduct said to constitute terrorism offences to remain publicly available, have taken no steps to remove or restrict it, and have permitted the Defend Our Juries campaign to continue encouraging members of the public to engage in conduct that may expose them to criminal liability.

We strongly recommend that readers review the correspondence in full.

The Home Secretary has not responded to our correspondence date (13 April 2026).

1. Letter from Right to Protest Ltd to Metropolitan Police: 27th August 2025

2. Letter from Right to Protest Ltd to Metropolitan Police: 26th September 2025

3. Letter from Right to Protest Ltd to Metropolitan Police: 4th October 2025

4. Reply from Metropolitan Police to Right to Protest Ltd: 10th October 2025

5. Letter from Right to Protest Ltd to Metropolitan Police: 30th October 2025

6. Reply from Metropolitan Police to Right to Protest Ltd: 3rd November 2025

7. Letter from Right to Protest Ltd to Metropolitan Police: 30th November 2025

8. Letter from Right to Protest Ltd to Metropolitan Police: 24th February 2026

9. Reply from Metropolitan Police to Right to Protest Ltd: 3rd November 2025

10. Letter from Right to Protest Ltd to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood: 27th September 2025

In light of the evidence, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the authorities have allowed members of the public to be encouraged into committing offences which they could and should have prevented. In substance, this begins to resemble police entrapment.