“Forget justice, it’s much too expensive and time consuming. Plus if you take the government to court, you will have to spend your own money, and we are saving you from that”.

That is a fair summary of the judgement by Lords Pentland and Troy and Lady Wise in our appeal against the suspension of the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. Plus an underlying Unionist assumption that Scotland should abide by the decisions of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and the London Supreme Court adjudicating an English case in English law.

[30] We are not persuaded that this decision was “plainly wrong” or that it was one that no reasonable Lord Ordinary could have reached. The Lord Ordinary has clearly had regard to the relevant factors: the securing of the speediest final determination against a background of minimisation of expense and appropriate use of court resources. The decision of the Supreme Court, although not binding on the courts in Scotland, will be highly persuasive, concerning as it will the validity of an Order which applies equally to all UK jurisdictions.

Full judgement here

There is a great irony here in that Scotland termed its own highest courts “The Supreme Courts” before the term was in use in English law, and these Scottish law lords were sitting in a building which has “The Supreme Courts” emblazoned across the front in bold gold letters. That same building was Scotland’s parliament in the days before Independence and houses the magnificent Parliament chamber with its extraordinary hammerbeam roof. It now has no function but to house portraits of fat self-satisfied justices, ranging from the Earl of Stair who planned the Massacre of Glencoe, to Lady Dorrian who imprisoned me for journalism and sought to limit trial by jury.

In their judgement Pentland et al acknowledge that the reason the Scottish judicial review has not happened was the delay caused by the UK government producing secret intelligence evidence, which we are not allowed to know, and for which special closed (a euphemism for secret) sessions had to be arranged:

28] It is regrettable that a year has passed since the petition was lodged, and some eight months since permission to proceed was granted, without a substantive hearing having taken place. There appear to have been two principal causes for the time taken (we find nothing to support the petitioner’s allegation that the UK Government has deliberately sought to obstruct an independent Scottish challenge). One of the causes was the procedure necessitated by the closed material application. The other was the interaction of the Scottish proceedings with decisions of the courts in Ammori. By the time the closed material procedure had run its course, the decision of the Court of Appeal was awaited. When the motion to sist with which this reclaiming motion is concerned was granted, the date of the expedited Supreme Court hearing was already known. All of these circumstances have had an effect on the timescale for determination of the petition.

The judgement therefore leaves the Scottish judicial review to continue after the Supreme Court judgement. It will look at the particularly Scottish arguments. There is a presumption in this judgement that it will not look at the freedom of speech and association arguments being considered by the Supreme Court in Ammori on the grounds that the Supreme Court decision will be “highly persuasive”.

But we are going to argue that there were matters not before the Supreme Court for consideration from the Ammori case. Principally there is our attack on the evidential basis for proscription, including so far only one out of 35 charges of violence against Palestine Action activists ending in conviction. That was not available information at the Ammori case as it had not yet happened, and subsequent appeals have only been on points of law. We have more unique material to add on the evidential grounds for proscription.

We will therefore be bringing a new basis to the weighting of the judgement of proportionality in considering the infringement of Article X and XI rights versus “national security”.

In addition we are going to be bringing the question of the duty to consult and lack of consultation with anybody at all in Scotland over a proscription which directly affects the Scottish government’s devolved powers over justice and policing.
The insistence of this Labour ‘Friends of Israel’ UK government on continuing with the proscription of Palestine Action – and the prosecution of almost 4,000 peaceful protestors as terrorists – gives the lie to the pretence of Burnham and Miliband to be different on Israel.

Miliband claimed it was not the intention to criminalise protestors. That is plainly a lie when that is the direct effect of the proscription they brought in, when they are proceeding with the prosecutions, and where they are proceeding with their defence of the proscription in the Supreme Court and Court of Session.

They also claimed they were going to bring in sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements, but they have done nothing. It is purely propaganda. They have allowed the Israeli government to effectively close the British Consulate General in Jerusalem and expel 14 UK diplomats and families, without any retaliatory action. They are joining in with the Saudi attack on Ansar Allah.

The grip of extreme Zionism on the political and media establishment remains so strong that, with their current attack on the English Greens, they are attempting to reimpose the requirement to accept the existence of an apartheid, genocidal entity as a necessary condition of societal respectability.

We may not have shifted the Establishment to do more than pretend to have changed nuance, but we have won the battle of public opinion. That is the value of these continued battles which expose the Establishment – be they judges, editors or politicians – for what they are.

We need help urgently as our legal bills currently exceed the amount of money raised. I have put in money myself but I am now wiped out. Our state opponents have had our crowdfunder closed down, which is disgusting in the middle of a legal case, but reflects the world in 2026.

Other donation methods are currently still available even though the CrowdJustice route has been closed. Obviously we now need funds more than ever to carry on.

Alternatively by bank transfer:

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