Ed Miliband has hinted that Labour could end the UK’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group as the government hardens its attitude towards Israel. 

The Foreign Secretary defended ‘the right to peaceful protest’ after hundreds of supporters of the outlawed group were arrested outside the party’s annual conference in Liverpool.

Former home secretary Yvette Cooper proscribed PA last year after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton.

Members have also been convicted over a string of other attacks, including a break-in at an Israeli defence firm in which a policewoman had her back broken with a sledgehammer. 

But in an LBC interview last night, presenter Andrew Marr portrayed the group as a collection of ‘elderly people, vicars and grannies’ and asked if Mr Miliband really wanted them branded terrorists.

It followed an incident on Sunday night in which Mr Miliband was confronted by PA activists while eating dinner in a Pizza Express.

The Foreign Secretary defended ‘the right to peaceful protest’ after hundreds of supporters of the outlawed group were arrested outside the party’s annual conference in Liverpool

It followed an incident on Sunday night in which Mr Miliband was confronted by PA activists while eating dinner in a Pizza Express 

Former Home Secretary Yvette Cooper proscribed PA last year after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton, sparking protests around the UK, including at the conference

‘I did, over my pizza, talk to them a bit. I believe in the right to peaceful protest, I think that is important,’ Mr Miliband told the radio station.

‘On the specific issue of Palestine Action, there is a case coming before the Supreme Court and so I’ll let that case play out because I think it is important that the court process takes its course.’

Asked specifically about elderly protesters, he added: ‘I don’t think anyone’s intent was to have those people criminalised, but obviously the Supreme Court has got to look at this issue and obviously it is something we keep looking at as Government.’   

In June, five Court of Appeal judges said the ban on the organisation as a terror group was a ‘justified and proportionate’ interference on freedom of expression rights.

This overturned the judgment of three judges at the High Court who ruled in February that the then-home secretary Yvette Cooper’s decision to ban Palestine Action was unlawful, after a legal challenge from the group’s co-founder Huda Ammori.

After the judgment, Ms Ammori said she intended to take the case to the Supreme Court, and the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

Mr Miliband was given a standing ovation by Labour activists yesterday as he said Britain would be tougher on Israel over its treatment of Palestinians under Andy Burnham.

The Foreign Secretary fired a broadside at the Netanyahu government’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank in a moment that will add to the deepening freeze in relations between the UK and Israel. 

Mr Miliband, the architect of a new West Bank sanctions package that outraged Tel Aviv earlier this month, signalled Labour was prepared to go further, despite fears it is damaging relations with a key international security ally. 

He said that ‘millions of people… moved and outraged by the plight of the Palestinian people: we hear you, you were right’, to cheers and applause.

Police arrested or reported for summons 161 people at Sunday’s pro-Palestine demonstration outside the Labour Party conference.

Hundreds of people sat outside the conference centre in Liverpool, holding handmade banners saying they supported banned group Palestine Action.

Police started making arrests in the afternoon, continuing for several hours.

Merseyside Police said on Monday that officers arrested 82 people on suspicion of wearing/carrying an article supporting a proscribed organisation, who were taken into police custody before being released on bail.

A further 79 people were reported for summons.

Defend Our Juries, which organised the protest, said one of those arrested on Sunday was 94-year-old human rights barrister, Margaret Owen.

In April,  Palestine Action activists Charlotte Head, 30, Samuel Corner, 24, Leona Kamio, 31, and Fatema Rajwani, 22, were convicted of criminal damage over a raid at the Elbit Systems factory near Bristol in August 2024.

Corner, a former student at Oxford, struck police officer Kate Evans twice on the back with a seven-pound sledgehammer, leaving her with a fractured spine.

In June, Mr Justice Johnson jailed Corner for seven years and eight months for criminal damage and causing grievous bodily harm, while Head and Kamio were jailed for five years and Rajwani for four years and eight months for criminal damage.