Corbyn demands action from Lammy, ‘absurd’ Palestine Action ban

Your Party co-leader Jeremy Corbyn has written publicly to Justice Secretary David Lammy, slamming the Starmer regime’s ‘absurd and draconian’ terror ban on non-violent protest group Palestine Action.

Corbyn calls out Lammy over Palestine Action

Amu Gib, one of Corbyn’s Islington North constituents, is among six Palestine Action activists who have gone on hunger strike in protest at the government’s decision to keep them in prison for more than a year before trial, with potentially more than a year still to wait, for damaging an Israeli weapons factory in Bristol. Another eighteen activists are also being held, all effectively political prisoners. The ‘proscription’ of Palestine Action, which bans it as a terrorist organisation alongside the likes of ISIS, has been condemned by United Nations and human rights experts.

Corbyn wrote to Lammy on 20 November:

Dear Secretary of State,

20/ 11/2025

I am writing regarding my constituent, Amu Gib, who is currently remanded in prison for alleged offences relating to RAF Brize Norton. They have been held on remand since June 2025, and their trial is scheduled for January 2027.

Their imprisonment preceded the government’s absurd and draconian decision to proscribe Palestine Action – a decision that has now resulted in the arrest of more than 2,000 people. You will know that I opposed this outrageous and authoritarian order at the time. UN Special Rapporteurs have condemned the proscription as “not justified”, “necessary” and characteristic of states that are authoritarian and lack legal and political cultures of respect for human rights, legality, due process, and independent judicial safeguards.”

My constituent has now begun an open-ended hunger strike, along with several other political prisoners. Four of them have now been imprisoned in the UK for over a year – well beyond the standard 182-day pre-trial custody limit. The rolling hunger-strike has been called to protest their continued incarceration without trial, and in support of a list of demands, including:

1. An end to censorship
2. Immediate bail
3. The right to a fair trial
4. The de-proscription of Palestine Action
5. Shut Elbit down

I am gravely concerned for the health and well-being of my constituent and all those who have been refusing food. I am therefore writing to request an urgent meeting with you to discuss the very troubling conditions of the hunger strikers, which include the apparent refusal of medical attention. At this meeting, I will be seeking assurances that you are taking steps to protect the rights of those who are currently detained, and that they will not be subject to any retrospective application of the government’s recent changes to counter-terrorism laws.

This government could have ended arms sales to Israel and upheld its legal obligations to prevent genocide. Instead, it is criminalising those who dare to oppose British complicity in the mass murder of Palestinians. We will keep campaigning for an end to military cooperation with Israel, and for the only path to peace: freedom and justice for the Palestinian people.

Yours sincerely,

Rt Hon Jeremy Corbyn MP

To protect Israel and its interests, Keir Starmer is waging an ever-escalating ‘lawfare’ war on peaceful anti-genocide activists and even journalists: raiding and detaining them, seizing the electronics of many, arresting thousands and prosecuting an increasing number – many of them Jewish, for opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza, in what its victims have condemned as a campaign of state terror to protect the terror state.

Corbyn is spot on to call put Lammy like this – and should not be ignored.

Featured image via the Canary