Yvette Cooper made ‘significant’ error in banning Palestine Action – High Court

Former home secretary Yvette Cooper made a “significant” error and did not follow her own policies when she decided to ban Palestine Action, the High Court has ruled.

Dame Victoria Sharp said Ms Cooper’s decision last year to proscribe the group under the Terrorism Act 2000 had not properly followed the legal test.

The decision should be overturned, the High Court ruled on Friday.

The judge said it was important to balance the right to protest with the Home Secretary’s “political and practical responsibility to secure public safety”.

Ms Cooper was appointed Foreign Secretary in a September Cabinet reshuffle, and was replaced in the Home Office by Shabana Mahmood.

“We have concluded that the Home Secretary failed properly to apply her policy”, Dame Victoria said in a written judgment.

“We are satisfied that the decision to proscribe Palestine Action was disproportionate.

“At its core, Palestine Action is an organisation that promotes its political cause through criminality and encouragement of criminality. A very small number of its actions have amounted to terrorist action.”

Dame Victoria said Ms Cooper made a “significant” error in using her discretion to ban Palestine Action partly because of the potential advantages of proscription in disrupting the group’s activities.

“She exercised the discretion to proscribe taking account of a consideration inconsistent with her own policy,” the written ruling said.

“The strength of the case for proscription may need to be considered further by the Home Secretary.”

The Judge said the group remains proscribed pending further legal arguments over whether the quashing of the decision should be paused.

Palestine Action activists called for Ms Cooper to resign after the High Court’s decision.

In a speech outside the Royal Courts of Justice, activist Lisa Minerva Luxx said: “Yvette Cooper lied to the British public, lied to get it through the House of Commons, she even lied to Parliament.

“She cannot be trusted to serve as a minister of this country in any capacity and she must resign today.”