Suffragettes to Palestine Action: A history of direct-action protest in UK

The United Kingdom’s Court of Appeal has upheld the government’s decision to proscribe the activist group Palestine Action as a “terrorist organisation”, marking the latest chapter in a growing debate about the right to protest in Britain.

Palestine Action, founded in 2020, describes itself as a “direct action” movement committed to disrupting companies and institutions it says are complicit in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Its activists have targeted weapons manufacturers and military facilities in the UK mainly through acts of vandalism and property destruction.

Supporters say the group belongs to a long British tradition of civil disobedience while critics accuse it of engaging in tactics that cross the line into “terrorism”. The dispute raises a broader question: How has Britain historically treated direct-action movements, and what, if anything, has changed?

We look at the UK’s rich history of activist movements that have used similar tactics.

Direct action has long played a role in Britain’s democratic history. The Women’s Social and Political Union, founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903, emerged after years as a movement campaigning for women’s suffrage.

Its members, known as suffragettes, heckled politicians, disrupted public meetings, chained themselves to railings, smashed windows and carried out arson and even bombing campaigns that targeted property. Suffragettes were frequently imprisoned for offences that included criminal damage, obstruction and arson, and many endured repeated jail terms.

Katharine Gatty, for example, was imprisoned for three weeks in 1911 and six months in 1912 for smashing windows. Another suffragette, Jane Short, was sentenced to three months in prison after smashing the windows of a post office. She openly admitted the offence, saying it was intended to draw attention to the campaign for women’s suffrage and refused to promise she would not repeat her actions. Short became the first suffragette to be placed in the First Division, a category reserved for political prisoners or “terrorists”.

Others launched hunger strikes while in jail, prompting the government to force-feed them, which was called for under the 1913 “Cat and Mouse Act”.