Massive Attack have responded to the ban on the direct action group Palestine Action being deemed unlawful by the high court.
Three senior judges have ruled that the ban on the group under anti-terrorism laws was unlawful and disproportionate. They also urged Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to respect the decision, saying that the initial ban – introduced by her predecessor Yvette Cooper – infringed on people’s right to protest.
The Met Police have said that they will stop arresting people for showing support for Palestine Action immediately, given the decision, but will continue to gather evidence in case prosecutions arise in the future.
Mahmood has claimed that she will appeal against the ban being lifted, meaning that the fate of over 2,500 people arrested for supporting Palestine Action remains in the balance, as per The Guardian.
Among those who have supported the decision to lift the ban on the group are Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori, who called the move a “monumental victory”. UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, Ben Saul, also urged the Home Secretary to accept the judgement.
A spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats agreed, saying that it was “disproportionate” to place the group in the same legal category as ISIS, and Green party leader Zack Polanski also told the government to “stop criminalising the people protesting a genocide”.
Massive Attack have acknowledged the decision too. They shared a post on social media with an image of Robert Del Naja attending a protest in support of Palestine Action, alongside a statement criticising the government for branding those who supported the group “terrorists”.
“Keir Starmer’s government wanted to punish those who made their complicity in a genocide visible. They confected an authoritarian law to retaliate against peaceful citizens holding signs. They wanted to brand those people terrorists’,” the post read.
“Just like the court of public opinion, the High Court has now found that unlawful. Respect and love for every citizen, every pensioner, every young person who risked their liberty to resist genocide. They were arrested by the state for nothing more than their peaceful conscience,” they added.
The Bristol trip-hop icons also went on to make reference to the Filton 24 – a group of pro-Palestine activists who were arrested and charged after protesting at an Israeli-owned Elbit Systems factory in Bristol back in 2024.
“In the case of the Filton 24, the highest price has been paid by those on the receiving end of this government’s vindictive guilt,” they added. “Under any authoritarian government, bad laws are there to be broken. Free Palestine.”
In December it was confirmed that the Filton 24 would be tried on charges of aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder in April 2026. The Crown Prosecution Service said there was a “terrorism connection”, but no charges were brought under the Terrorism Act. At least eight of those arrested went on a high-profile hunger strike.
According to The Bristol Cable, last week six of the protesters went to trial, and a jury at Woolwich Crown Court in London refused to convict them. The remaining defendants accused of taking part in the protest are still awaiting court dates, and the hunger strikes appear to have largely ended following the latest developments.
Upon news of the arrests at the end of last year, Del Naja – along with Kneecap’s Móglái Bap and Garbage – shared posts from campaigners who claimed that the prisoners were “being held without bail in British prisons” and alleging that “three hunger strikers had been hospitalised”.
Around that same time, Kneecap and Massive Attack jointly called for fans to contact Secretary of State for Justice David Lammy MP to intervene in the safeguarding of Palestine Action prisoners on hunger strike in the UK.
Responding to NME’s request for comment, Minister of State for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending Lord Timpson said that there were “longstanding procedures in place to ensure prisoner safety”.
“Prison healthcare teams provide NHS care and continuously monitor the situation,” the response added. “HMPPS are clear that claims that hospital care is being refused are entirely misleading – they will always be taken when needed and a number of these prisoners have already been treated in hospital.”
Massive Attack have shared their support for Palestine in many other ways too, and last summer joined Primal Scream in slamming the government for allowing the arrest of “peaceful citizens” at a Palestine Action demonstration in London.
In September, they also joined Fontaines DC, Amyl & The Sniffers and over 400 other artists in backing the No Music For Genocide campaign, and later added that they would be fully boycotting Spotify. The latter, they said, was due to reports that the streamer’s CEO Daniel Ek had made significant investments “in a company producing military munition drones and AI technology integrated into fighter aircraft”.
Massive Attack have boycotted performing in Israel since 1999 and, last spring, issued a statement supporting Kneecap after it was announced that the Irish trio were under investigation by counter-terrorism police in the UK.
The case against Kneecap’s Móglaí Bap was dropped last September due to a technicality relating to the way in which it was brought about. At the time, the Chief Magistrate told the court that the charge was “unlawful” and “null”.
Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations of waging genocide, and denies committing any war crimes, maintaining that its operations are lawful acts of self-defence following Hamas’ attack on Israeli citizens at the Nova Music Festival on October 7 2023, which killed over 1,100 people and saw 250 taken as hostages.
