Yvette Cooper has continually lied about Palestine Action in a panicked attempt to defend the proscription of a direct action protest group which is opposing a Genocide in which Cooper’s government is deeply complicit.
Cooper and other government ministers have repeatedly claimed:
- Palestine Action attacks people, not just weapons-making equipment
- Palestine Action is funded by Iran or another hostile power
- Palestine Action attacks Jewish-owned businesses based on racism
- Palestine Action has plans for future unspecified appalling terrorist acts
In fact none of this is backed up by the assessment of the government’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which forms the basis of the proscription of Palestine Action.
The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) is not a committee which meets occasionally, but a permanently staffed organisation with premises inside MI5 HQ in Millbank. The JTAC consists of representatives of:
MI5 – the Security Service
MI6 – the Special Intelligence Service
GCHQ – electronic and communications surveillance
DIS – the Defence Intelligence Service
Customs & Excise Special Operations
The Border Force
Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism Command
The Home Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Ministry of Defence
The Department of Transport
Ten other ministries are included on an ad hoc basis.
All reports of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre must be approved by consensus of all involved.
It is of course vitally important that all of these bodies are under ministerial control. The object of the exercise is to produce the result desired by ministers, i.e. proscription, justified only on available true facts and a legally tenable argument under the current legislation.
I attach the declassified version of the JTAC report, which has been “gisted” for use in court proceedings.
“Gisted” means it has gone through a process known as “sanitisation”. This means that all the key information has been retained, but in a form which protects the source.
Before I explain this to you I should explain that I once headed the FCO section of an extremely similar operation, not JTAC but ESC. The Embargo Surveillance Centre had very similar membership, was composed of almost exactly the same parties and was also primarily involved in assessing and producing reports and “action-on” from top secret intelligence.
I wrote daily gisted reports and cleared the “sanitisation” with the intelligence service representatives on a daily basis.
The purpose is to protect your source. You cannot give out information so specific that it can cause those under surveillance to say “Oh no my phone is tapped!” or worse “Wow the only person who knew that is Jimmy. He must have told them. Jimmy is an MI5 spy”.
So you have to reduce the level of information down to something that might have a more generic origin. Rather than saying “This group is planning to carry out an attack on Ladies’ Day at Ascot”, for example, you might say “This group is planning an attack in England”.
The object is to give the highest level of information the intelligence services are comfortable in giving.
That might end up being as vague as “This group plans attacks on civilians”. But that information would obviously be vital to the court and it would be given.
In fact there is nothing whatsoever in the JTAC assessment which backs up any of the claims being put out in a panic by government ministers.
The JTAC report makes absolutely clear that its assessment of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation is based only on the definition in the Terrorism Act, of a group that commits serious damage to property in order to influence government policy.
I pause here to note that the United Nations has intervened in the case to state that this does not meet international standards for defining terrorism. Damage to property should only be terrorism when the intent is to endanger life, such as damaging an air traffic control centre.
The JTAC report in fact notes that Palestine Action stresses its philosophy of non-violent action against people. Much is however made of one single attack (out of 385) where substantial violence against persons is alleged (though hotly denied).
But even here the JTAC report notes that the sledgehammer and axe were intended for use against machinery, an obvious fact.
I have blanked out a very small amount of the JTAC report which explicitly relates to this action in Bristol, because it is the subject of an upcoming trial and publication would be in contempt of court. The blanked-out sections take police allegations entirely as fact, even though they are hotly denied and subject to trial.
I have done this despite the fact that both government ministers and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police have repeatedly made assertions about these events which are absolutely prejudicial to a fair trial, and were undeniably in contempt of court.
Equality before the law has disappeared in the UK.
So here is the official, otherwise unvarnished JTAC report on Palestine Action. It makes plain that government ministers are simply lying about their information. I publish it as a journalist who has been given this document and sees an overwhelming public interest in the truth being known about a matter which has caused the arrest of some thousand people in recent weeks.
- If Palestine Action deliberately attacked people
- If Palestine Action had foreign funding
- If Palestine Action attacked random Jewish businesses
- If Palestine Action planned a big terrorist act
the JTAC report would say so. It says nothing of the sort.
Palestine Action is what it says it is: a non-violent direct action group which targets the Israeli weapons industry and its support and supply line.
It states that its actions are not terrorism but direct action to prevent Genocide – and when given the chance, juries have usually sided with Palestine Action against the government.
The reason Yvette Cooper has proscribed Palestine Action is that she is a member of Labour Friends of Israel and has received £215,000 from the Zionist lobby – which is £215,000 more than Palestine Action ever received on behalf of a foreign power.
Ministers are lying to you. I have provided a little antiseptic daylight.
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Thank you Craig for this important piece of journalism.
+1
All who take politics seriously knew Cooper was lying but it’s very welcome to have the proof. Many thanks.
Exposure of her egregious mendacity should, of course, be followed by her resignation, but I won’t hold my breath.
The urgency now is to stop Israel IDF’s violence in Gaza and the settlers’ elsewhere. All power to the ‘Bogota 30’ nations and any organisation or persons who can similarly stick their necks out to achieve that. (I support as a non-Jew, Jewish Voice for Labour.)
Meanwhile for the thousands arrested or risking arrest here, the ‘cover’ for now for this UK government seems a very dodgy Terrorism Act. The United Nations and the ICJ enabled under the UN Charter has required obligations on the part of member states, obligations which, to me, clearly apply to my government. The line of history is clear. The Starmer government needs to be strongly advised to pull this train into a siding and get us passengers off before we are all hauled off to court in a likely unforgiving world, complicit in real personal violence on an industrial scale.
Craig Murray
Please can you provide evidence to support the assertion that Yvette Cooper “has received £215,000 from the zionist lobby”. Thanks.
She registered a £210,000 donation from the Israel lobbyist Gary Lubner in June 2023.
Lubner, whose family bankrolled the Afrikaner National (apartheid) Party in South Africa, has generously donated £4.5m to Starmer’s pro-genocide Labour Party.
Gary is getting everything he paid for policywise (perhaps even more than he expected), and has also seen his son Jack “elected” chair of Young Labour.
Gary Lubner’s Wikipedia entry includes this:
He actively supported the anti-apartheid movement and defended Nelson Mandela, telling the Financial Times about “getting into many fights with business people who were saying ‘he’s a terrorist’ and all of that. And so it was very important to me to do all I could.”
He seems rather confused.
Very common. There’s a well-known American expression: “liberal except for Israel”. views instantly change when it comes to Israel, even for left-wing people.
Labour politicians are almost invariably personally corrupt supporters of genocide and austerity. They are completely unscrupulous practitioners of ‘antisemitism’ scamming.
Some of the worst people in society, meticulously vetted by Mandelson, McSweeney and co.
I don’t agree that Palestine Action is a terrorist group, but for FS why oh why do you have to resort to acts of vandalism to prove a point when there just isn’t any need for it and to be honest you ain’t helping these people on the ground. No one will ever convince me that vandalism is the right way when it isn’t, your feeding the other side argument for them.
I’m totally annoyed at these kids painting these plane’s and what has been achieved, nothing. All its done has given the other side a reason to argue that the steps they have taken are correct.
I have been watching what has been in Gaza and the Westbank since this started and I’ve had to stop I really can’t cope with it any more it has made me so depressed so I can only imagine what it must be like for these poor people. So when I heard what the Palestine Action had done with these planes I thought nothing good will come of this and it will cause more harm than good. Yes you get media attention but for all the wrong reasons, this isn’t the first rodeo the UKG has had to deal with and it won’t be the last.
It draws attention to what these vile companies are doing (I for one had no idea) and makes it more difficult for them to operate. Some sites have closed. What would you prefer just people politely writing to their MP? you might as well shout at an aeroplane. (maybe the suffragettes should have done that as well, not antagonise men…?) Some activists say there are better ways, I don’t know but it’s a bit bizarre to argue you are encouraging the genocide by taking action against the arms companies.
100% Yes, You ask what good all Palestine Action’s vandalism has done, then suggest that spray painting RAF aircraft has only generated negative publicity. There’s an adage that ‘all publicity is good publicity’ and I would argue that that’s certainly the case in this instance. The public are now far more aware of spy flights from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus (including the duplicity of Foreign Secretary David Lammy in asserting that the RAF was not aiding the IDF in its assault on Gaza) as a result of PAs proscription. Then there are the massive demonstrations around the Country in support of PA and their cause, in which hundreds of people have been arrested for deliberately flouting the proscription order on PA, heaping pressure on both the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Sir Mark Rowley, head of the Metropolitan Police. They are now faced with a choice; double down and cause further, probably larger acts of civil disobedience while further undermining public trust in the Police and Government, or accept that their proscription and the arrests of peaceful citizens is misguided and revert to policing in a considered, intelligent way rather than their current draconian methods.
100%. Do you not value your vote? I know it doesn’t seem like much these days but without acts of vandalism far far worse than anything Pal Act have done so far you wouldn’t have one
I’m afraid you come across like the type of person that would have written into the Era newspaper begging to understand why oh why Emily Davis and others of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) bombed the Home Secretary David Lloyd-George’s country home in 1913. No one was hurt but the house was completely destroyed.
I think you take your freedoms too lightly.
PA have shut down arms factories and sever funding ties with complicit companies. Of course that helps Palestinians.
Thanks Craig. Yvette Cooper has for years been hailed by liberals as the ultimate voice of reason and commonsense in British politics.
Good Report.
This obnoxious person, Ms Balls, is funded and controlled by Israeli money, like a significant proportion of her colleagues in Westminster. This has been obvious since the overthrow of Corbyn enabled by the the Israeli embassy. As evidenced in ‘The Lobby’ [1] and the ‘Labour Files’ [2] produced by Al Jazeera.
And, what’s worse it appears that Israel has direct input into the government and judicial systems. One mechanism for this control is via the Embassy and another truly obnoxious person, tzipi-hotovely. “Hotovely’s diary indicates a close working relationship between pro-Israel lobby organisations in Britain and the Israeli embassy in London”. [3].
None of this would be possible without a compliant, owned, media. For example, Israel is currently handing out its orders directly to the lapdogs of the American media. “In a move that perfectly encapsulates the moral bankruptcy of both Israel’s public relations machine and much of the Western press, forty-five US journalists have descended on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories—not to witness the devastation in Gaza, but to take part in a choreographed tour designed, funded, and controlled by the Israeli government.” [4]
If this infestation of British democracy (LoL) had been by anyone other than Israel, say Russia or China, there would rightly have been an outcry and it would have been stopped. But, Israel can do no wrong even when it obviously is. Cooper, Starmer, Cameron, etc. what is wrong with these people ?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceCOhdgRBoc
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elp18OvnNV0
[3] https://www.declassifieduk.org/revealed-the-tzipi-hotovely-diary
[4] https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2025/08/12/us-journalists-israel
Glad to see a journalist having the courage to use their sources to break such an important story that shows our Home Secretary is blatantly lying to the people.
I’m not sure what criminal offence covers such mendacity in running cover for genocide while in the pay of a foreign government perpetrating that genocide albeit through intermediaries but it is quite clear she is not fit to hold office. Can’t see her boss who is also committing the same offences giving her the push as he’s next.
Will be interesting to see if other so called journalists at the BBC, ITV etc and the print media have the balls to publish this and give full credit to you. I somehow doubt it.
All the same it’s an important boost to the campaign for free speech and our ability to speak out against genocide.
Incidentally, small point but Customs and Excise no longer exists having merged with Inland Revenue to form HM Revenue and Customs courtesy of Gordon Brown quite a few years ago.
They don’t need to credit me if they would publish the truth! But of course they won’t.
The treatment of peaceful protestors last weekend at the hands of the met police confirms to me that free speech has now been officially outlawed in the UK except for those who happen to side with Keir Starmer and his criminal gang. It’s absolutely fine to express support for war crimes and genocide but dissenters should expect to feel the full force of the law carting them off to the nearest vacant prison cell.
Guido Crosetto, the Italian Defence Minister, said yesterday:
“What is happening is unacceptable. We are not facing a military operation with collateral damage, but the pure denial of the law and the founding values of our civilisation”
His statement is aimed at the current illegal and criminal Israeli regime but sadly equally applicable to the complicit US, UK and European leadership.
It is painfully desperate to witness such glacially slow admissions of the bleeding obvious. And remarkable how insouciant leading politicians are in the face of this collapse.
Ms Balls is but a helpless marionette.
And what of Healey?
Also read that Trump had a hand in the proscription – after he expressed anger at PA, for daubing his golf course in Scotland with paint.
Do you agree that, as a Minister of the Crown, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has sovereign immunity? And as Crown Officers, MI5 personnel have sovereign immunity too? And this derives from the Royal prerogative of the British imperial uncodified quasi-Constitution? And these powers are often revealed when MI5 policy has been turned into statute (and even enhanced by it?)
And if you agree with all of these, how would you characterise the British state, by international norms and political theory and practice?
Leontes to Hermione, The Winter’s Tale, Act 3 scene 2
Of course, Yvette Cooper may simply be doing her job by lying, since treason is here against the monarch rather than the people. But I’m fairly sure she’d be locking up William Shakespeare (and maybe chopping his hands off) for supporting terrorism on this run of form.
Its a measure of extreme political psychopathy to condone a genocide while attacking pacifist anti-genocide protesters.
Proves how far from humanity the political class have fallen. Perhaps persuaded by all that lovely cash from fellow psychopaths Israel.
PA were proscribed for being effective, unlike the 7000+ purposeful arrests XR, JSO and last week’s demonstrations have tallied up, by suggestion of the same man. Which is beginning to look like an, at best, ineffective strategy. And at worst a spycop routine.
Many thanks to Craig for this fine post.
It seems to me that there are 101 possible charges which could be hung onto PA, but of course none of them attracts 14 years in the nick and they are not likely to create the same degree of fear among the sheeple (terrorism – panic! criminal damage – yawn!)
Just as it has been said that “if elections ever changed anything, they would be abolished”, so also is it true that “protests are allowed until they look like changing the larger public’s mind”.
It has been said that “if elections changed anything, they would soon be abolished”.
It is equally true that protests in the UK are allowed only until they look like changing public perceptions for good.
Well of course she lies. She’s a politician. How many Cabinet ministers, in the last 30 years, didn’t tell lies while in office?
But how many of those lies led to the current situation – where an activist organisation is proscribed, 100’s of decent citizens who oppose a genocide are arrested (by 100’s of police costing tax payer money) and, importantly, a chilling effect is applied to voices who oppose the genocide?
Cooper’s lies, actions and efforts are utterly repugnant – and thus so is the person – a disgusting political example.
Cooper is a hypocrite of the highest order (qv the suffragette episode).
The sooner we can expose the lies and deceit – and any mercenary, blackmail or other rationale behind this political takeover – the better.
Personally, I would like the net to be cast wide and deep – including a foundation to be set up to continue the hunting down of those complicit in this genocide for decades if required. That includes those “just following orders”.
Just in case anyone was wondering: the image files of the 12 pages of the report are numbered from 0 to 11. Pages 10 (image file 9) and 12 (image file 11) are almost completely blank, which is why they do not appear in the article, but the files do exist:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/OPEN-JTAC-Assessment-images-9-scaled.jpg
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/OPEN-JTAC-Assessment-images-11-scaled.jpg
I should also have mentioned that although the small print on pages 8 and 9 is unreadable in the article (at least, when using the Firefox browser), it can be read in the image files, when they are viewed separately:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/OPEN-JTAC-Assessment-images-7-scaled.jpg
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/OPEN-JTAC-Assessment-images-8-scaled.jpg
Well done, Craig,. for publishing this in the interests of democracy and accountability. Although I imagine the reaction from the press and TV will be one of sublime indifference. Which tells us a lot about their values,
I notice that since the emergence of this document during the hearing, that Cooper has taken to a more extreme position – muttering about ‘dark forces’ and ‘threats’ which have been disclosed to her and which she can’t possibly tell the public about. Pure desperation of course, and laughably implausible. But no doubt that line will be repeated behind closed doors at the appeal, with the defence unable to even know what the confected charges are. A media with a spine, or even some MP’s would kick up a real stink about this, but none of them seem capable, let alone interested, in the right to protest, protected under the ECHR in our law. The possession of a conscience, a belief in a robust separation of powers, coupled with proper accountability and scrutiny of the executive, seems so remote, so irrelevant to them, that you wonder what they do think they are there for? Do they actually believe in anything? What are the principles by which they conduct themselves? Some nice perks, a bit of admin and an easy ride for four years? The major issues of the day, namely genocide, complicity and accountability haven’t even crossed their tiny minds apparently. Those ‘defenders’ of the faith. Lol. Parliament used to have an awkward squad who would do so, now even that is a forlorn and forgotten relic of the past. It’s just clones on green benches.
One of the great ironies of this proscription debacle, a measure entirely uncalled for, unnecessary, and not approved by the government’s own advisers (but of course, ‘requested’ by foreign powers and lobbies whose appeasement is apparently more important to Starmer and Cooper) is that the vote for proscription was held in the same week that female MP’s were celebrating the suffragettes. Those brave women took direct action and civil disobedience against government policies, after splitting with the suffragists, who believed in following the law, the power of persuasion and non-confrontation – to no effect. The suffragettes:
• Smashed windows
• Burned public buildings, including politicians’ empty homes
• Held illegal demonstrations
• Planted bombs
• Disrupted the postal service
• Chained themselves to buildings and railings
• Held a public protest which the police attacked, injuring hundreds and resulting in some deaths, which came to be known as Black Friday.
Emmeline Pankhurst reflected later on the events of Black Friday and the impact it had on future campaigns – ‘Public conscience must be aroused, and it can only be done by attacks on public property. When women’s bodies were battered on Black Friday that was alright but when a few windowpanes are broken, that is all wrong.’
Does that sound familiar? This is far more extreme than Palestine Action in my view, yet we saw the spectacle of women MP’s strutting around parliament in suffragette sashes to celebrate them. By today’s Cooper standards this would surely be terrorism, of a more heinous kind than anything PA have come close to doing. The ignorance of these MP’s along with their hypocrisy, is off the scale. How dare they celebrate the direct action of one group and call another’s ‘terrorism?. How do they think things change without being agitated for, as those suffragettes did? Does anybody remember the Suffragists and their non-violent approach of celebrate their ‘achievements’? I think not. Ignorance of history and change is a sin when you celebrate those who took direct action for your benefit and which you will now deny to others.
Yvette’s lying is clearly a good thing. Think about it. If she were telling the truth 500+ terrorists were allowed to walk freely home last Saturday just by giving the police their names and addresses. Close shave for all of us, I reckon.
We just don’t have the quality of monsters that we used to have. Thatcher was a full-throated horror, Blair a sly necromancer, but the likes of Starmer and Cooper are pipsqueaks, of no intellectual or moral account whatsoever. Yet, the smaller they are as people, the greater the power that they wield – or that wields them.