Scottish Court Retreats After Starmer Government Intervention

28 May 2026

In the Court of Session decision today, Lord Young backed the British government's proscription of Palestine Action, retreating from an earlier decision to allow a Scottish judicial review to proceed.

Starmer sent a senior legal officer, the Advocate General for Scotland, to make arguments that were largely unchanged from those Lord Young had rejected at an earlier hearing. Catherine Smith KC gave an unimpressive intervention to rehash those arguments and to make clear to the noble Lord Young that the British government considered the case politically and constitutionally important.

Central to the dispute was whether Scotland’s courts should hear a judicial review that would suspend the British government’s proscription of Palestine Action and reduce the resulting chilling effect on free speech on Palestine and the right to protest, or whether proceedings should be paused, pending a decision at the High Court in England. Lord Young rejected the case largely on administrative rather than legal grounds, citing 'case management' rather than directly denying Scottish legal authority. The case has now been shelved without openly repudiating Scottish judicial independence.

Lord Young’s pivot means that Scots opposing genocide who face charges under what critics describe as the Starmer government’s fake terrorism legislation will not be protected by Scottish courts.

To secure convictions against anti-genocide campaigners, the British government introduced secret intelligence material in closed hearings, possibly nonsense about Palestine Action allegedly being financed by Iran, delaying the case further. Despite this, Scottish counter-terrorism assessments concluded that Palestine Action did not come close to meeting the threshold for terrorism. Lord Young dismissed their conclusions, the testimonies of Scottish citizens opposed to genocide who face terrorism charges, and proceeded to halt a Scottish judicial review, citing further delays and costs.

War is peace. Opposing genocide is 'terrorism'. The Scottish judicial system joins the British government, Police Scotland, the BMA, the SFA, universities, schools and every elite institution of society in protecting the concentration camp, the mass killing zone on the shores of the Mediterranean, the ethnic cleansing in the Occupied West Bank, and Israel's killing and occupation of Lebanon.

Clearly, when we, as the international solidarity movement, are organised and take strategic action, the genocidal state of Israel and their allies understand that we are a threat to their interests. This is why they attempt to delegitimise and criminalise solidarity, and why our work must not only continue but intensify regardless.

SPSC National Executive Committee