The Chilling Effect of the Terrorism Act

How Reporting Facts in Britain Can Now Land You in Jail for 14 Years as a Terrorist

Photo credit: Novapix

The moment the British government began proscribing political movements as terrorist organisations, rather than just militant groups, it was inevitable that saying factual things, making truthful statements, would become a crime.

And lo behold, here we are.

The Terrorism Act 2000 has a series of provisions that make it difficult to voice or show any kind of support for an organisation proscribed under the legislation, whether it is writing an article or wearing a T-shirt.

Recent attention has focused on Section 13, which is being used to hound thousands of mostly elderly people who have held signs saying: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.” They now face a terrorism conviction and up to six months in jail.

But an amendment introduced in 2019 to Section 12 of the Act has been largely overlooked, even though it is even more repressive. It makes it a terrorism offence for a person to express “an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation” and in doing so be “reckless” about whether anyone else might be “encouraged to support” the organisation.

It is hard to believe this clause was not inserted specifically to target the watchdog professions: journalists, human rights groups and lawyers. They now face up to 14 years in jail for contravening this provision.

When it was introduced, six years ago, Section 12 made it impossible to write or speak in ways that might encourage support for groups whose central aim was using violence against people to achieve their aims.

The law effectively required journalists and others to adopt a blanket condemnatory approach to proscribed militant groups. That had its own drawbacks. It made it difficult, and possibly a terrorist offence, to discuss or analyse these organisations and their goals in relation to international law, which, for example, allows armed resistance—violence—against an occupying army.

But these problems have grown exponentially since the Conservatives proscribed Hamas’ political wing in 2021 and the government of Keir Starmer proscribed Palestine Action in 2025, the first time in British history a direction-action group targeting property had been declared a terrorist group.

Now journalists, human rights activists and lawyers face a a legal minefield every time they try to talk about the Gaza genocide, the trials of people accused of belonging to Palestine Action, or the hunger strikes of those on remand over attacks on weapons factories supplying killer drones to Israel.

Why? Because saying truthful things about any of these matters—if they could lead a reader or listener to take a more favourable view of Palestine Action or the political wing of Hamas—are now a terrorist offence. Any journalist, human rights activist or lawyer making factual observations risks 14 years behind bars.

Few seem to have understood quite what impact this is having on public coverage of these major issues.

A month and a half into the hunger strike by eight members of Palestine Action—the point at which people are likely to start dying—the BBC News at Ten finally broke its silence on the matter. That was despite the hunger strike being the largest in UK history in nearly half a century.

There are clear political reasons why the BBC had avoided this topic for so long. It prefers not to deal with matters that directly confront the legitimacy of the government, which funds it. The BBC is effectively the British state broadcaster.

But in a naturally spineless organisation like the BBC, the legal consequences have clearly weighed heavily too. In a recent short segment on the hunger strike, BBC correspondent Dominic Casciani carefully hedged his words and admitted to facing legal difficulties reporting on the strike.

In these circumstances, news organisations make one of two choices. They simply ignore factual things because it is legally too dangerous to speak truthfully about them. Or they lie about factual things because it is legally safe—and politically opportune—to speak untruthfully about them.

The so-called “liberal” parts of the media, including the BBC, tend to opt for the former; the red-tops usually opt for the latter.

The government itself is taking full advantage of this lacuna in reporting, injecting its own self-serving deceptions into the coverage, knowing that there will be—can be—no meaningful pushback.

Take just one example. The government has proscribed Palestine Action on the grounds that it is a terrorist organisation. It has justified its decision by implying, without producing a shred of evidence, that the group is funded by Iran, and that its real agenda is not just criminal damage against arms factories but against individuals.

Any effort to counter this government disinformation, by definition, violates Section 12 of the Terrorism Act and risks 14 years’ imprisonment.

Were I to conduct an investigation, for example, definitively showing that Palestine Action was not funded by Iran—proving that the government was lying—it would be a terror offence to publish that truthful information. Why? Because it would almost certainly “encourage support” for Palestine Action. There is no fact or truth exemption in the legislation.

Similarly, the government has suggested that the current “Filton Trial”—which includes discussions of events in which a police officer was injured during a struggle over the sledgehammers being used to destroy the Elbit factory’s weapons-producing machinery—demonstrates that Palestine Action was not just targeting property but individuals too.

Were I to try to make the case that the alleged actions of one individual—only one person is charged with assault—prove nothing about the aims of the organisation as a whole, I would be risking a terrorism conviction and 14 years’ imprisonment. Which is one, very strong reason not to make such an argument.

But in the absence of such arguments, the reality is that social media is awash with posts from people echoing outrageous official disinformation. This spreads unchallenged because to challenge it is now cast as a terrorism offence.

In truth, since proscription, any statements about the political aims of a deeply political organisation like Palestine Action occupy a grey area of the law.

Is it a terrorism offence to point out the fact, as I have done above, that Palestine Action targeted Elbit factories that send killer drones to Israel for use in Gaza. In doing so, may I have “recklessly” encouraged you to support Palestine Action?

Can I express any kind of positive view about the hunger strikers or their actions without violating the law?

The truth is that the law’s greyness is its very point. It maximises the chilling effect on those who are supposed to serve as the public’s watchdogs on power: journalists, human rights groups, lawyers.

It allows the government—through complaint police forces—to selectively pick off those dissenting individuals it doesn’t like, those without institutional backing, to make examples of them. This is not conjecture. It is already happening.

The abuse of the Terrorism Act discourages research, analysis and critical thinking. It forces all journalists, human rights activists and lawyers to become lapdogs of the government. It creates a void into which the government can spin events to its own advantage, in which it can avoid accountability and in which it can punish those who dissent. It is the very antithesis of democratic behaviour.

This ought to appall anyone who cares about the truth, about public debate, about scrutiny. Because they have all been thrown out of the window.

And in proscribing Palestine Action, the government has set the most dangerous of precedents: it can outlaw any political group it chooses as a terrorist organisation and thereby make it impossible to defend that group.

That is what authoritarian governments do. That is exactly where Britain is now.