BREAKING: Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced she will make a written statement before Parliament on Monday, aiming to introduce legislation which might proscribe the Palestine Action direct action network as a terrorist group. This would require the consent of Parliament and could take several weeks. Keir Starmer has condemned today’s action at Brize Norton.
RAF bases have been targeted before by peace activists, and there’s been no suggestion of describing it as terrorism – in fact, activists have been acquitted. See this Real Media interview. Yvette Cooper has received substantial funding from Zionists such as Gary Lubner. Labour Friends Of Israel has supported many Labour MPs including Cooper, and has been revealed in undercover investigations to work closely with the Israeli Embassy in London.
In an overnight bold action at the largest air force base in Britain, two activists have decommissioned two Airbus Voyager cargo planes, in an attempt to interrupt UK support for Israeli genocide and aggression.
Footage supplied by the Palestine Action network appears to show two people on electric scooters approaching an aircraft within the RAF Brize Norton military base. Using their trademark converted fire extinguishers, they spray blood-red paint into one of the aircraft turbines.
The group claim they targeted two Airbus Voyager aircraft and also used crowbars to cause further damage, before escaping without arrest.
According to multiple sources, Brize Norton is heavily implicated in support for Israel’s aggression. Research by DeclassifiedUK revealed in February that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) operated at least three fights from the UK base last year, and in a response to a Parliamentary question by independent MP Kenny MacAskill last year, the Armed Forces Minister James Heappey admitted that nine IAF flights had landed and taken off in just the first four months of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Further questions showed the RAF had operated 19 flights to Israel over 7 months during last year.
Soon after October 2023, the Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported a huge influx of US military to the region as well as 20 British transport aircraft and 7 helicopters carrying arms and personnel to the Cyprus Akrotiri RAF base.
Palestine Action claim that RAF Airbus Voyagers have been seen flying missions across Jordan, Iraq and Syria to refuel US and Israeli fighter jets, and a wealth of evidence points to almost daily flights between Brize Norton and Akrotiri.
Recent research by Action On Armed Violence confirms that the RAF has conducted more than 500 Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) flights over or near Gaza during the genocide, but researchers wanting further information have been stonewalled by the government.
In a speech by Keir Starmer when he visited Akrotiri in December, he said “Quite a bit of what goes on here can’t necessarily be talked about all of the time. We can’t necessarily tell the world what you’re doing.”
Investigative journalist Matt Kennard regularly posts analysis of military flights which appear to show a high level of UK complicity in Israeli war crimes.
After the action at Brize Norton, a spokesperson for Palestine Action said:
“Britain isn’t just complicit, it’s an active participant in the Gaza genocide and war crimes across the Middle East. By decommissioning two military planes, Palestine Action have directly intervened in the genocide and prevented crimes against the Palestinian people.”
By decommissioning military planes complicit in war crimes, Palestine Action join a noble history of Ploughshares activism.
Watch our 2018 Real Media interview with activists who were acquitted after taking direct action to disarm UK fighter jets bound for Yemen.
Later on today, Palestine Action activists smashed windows and sprayed red paint at Allianz offices in Manchester and Chelmsford. Allianz has been the target of actions many times before due to their support for Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems through providing Employer Liability insurance cover. They also made a return visit to the Manchester office of CDW, which provides logistics and technical support to Elbit.
