Palestine Action has “crossed the line” says Ex Counter Terror police chief

Neil Basu states that Palestine Action has “crossed the line” breaking into RAF Brize Norton…

The former Head of Counter Terror Policing in the UK, Neil Basu has shared that he believes that Palestine Action has “crossed the line” breaking into the Brize Norton RAF base, adding that “any government has to react to that [action] but also any government’s got to react to unlawful protest. And this group is quite clearly committed to criminal activity.”

Speaking on the first episode of his brand-new Global podcast The Crime Agents, the former Met Assistant Commissioner also stated that “maybe the time is right to lower the bar” on proscribing terror organisations “to cut off a potentially extremist group before they’ve developed their reach.”

Commenting on the debate over whether Palestine Action should be proscribed as a terrorist group, Neil said: 

‘This is a really difficult issue, and I think they [Palestine Action] may have done their own legs with the Brize Norton incursion. We all feel like we’re on the edge of war, if not actually actively at war, in our support to Ukraine and what’s happening in the Middle East with our most powerful ally, then you invade a military base, you are crossing a line there, there’s no doubt about it.

“And any government has to react to that, but also any government’s got to react to unlawful protest. And this group is quite clearly committed to criminal activity. It’s a criminal protest group… So, I think the argument that, why didn’t you do Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil? Why weren’t they environmental terrorists? Section 1 of the Terrorism Act is what people need to read because it describes what terrorist activity actually is.

“So, if you’re thinking serious damage to property, serious threats or violence to an individual, endangering the public, endangering a section of the public, or intimidating a section of the public, have they reached that threshold? And the threshold for proscription has to be that they’re a terrorist group, and that bar was always very high.’

Asked whether he believes the bar to proscribe a terror group is lower than ever before, Neil told Andy:

“I don’t know. It will depend on the vote next week and what the Home Secretary decides to do. Six years in counter terrorism and what I’ve seen, most of which has been utterly horrific, makes me think maybe the bar should be lower.

“We’ve talked about Al Majuroon and Anjum Chaudhary… We’ll be talking about extreme right wing terrorism and National Action. Both ALM and National Action started off as groups that were operating under the radar, and were not proscribed, and it took years to proscribe them… The minute they were proscribed, it allowed counterterrorism policing and the intelligence agencies to target them and to break them and to make sure that they were no longer a threat.

“But up until that point, they’d been a serious threat, so maybe the time is right to lower the bar, and we made mistakes in the past, and actually, it would be better to cut off a potentially extremist group before they’ve developed their reach and they’ve developed their narrative and they’ve developed the people they want to radicalise.’

Listen to the first episode of The Crime Agents on Global Player now.