> On the evening of December 8, 2022, four people met at a guest house in Presteigne, a small Welsh town in Powys, on the border with England. They were Ruth Hogg, 40, who had a master’s degree in fine art and worked in an art gallery in Wales; Susan Bagshaw, 55, an artist and former social worker also from Commins Coch in Wales; Morwenna Grey, 41, a carer from nearby Machynlleth; and Tristan Dixon, 34, a musician from Huddersfield. They chatted for a while then early the following morning met again. This time they were dressed in black balaclavas and bright red boiler suits with two words taped to the back: “Palestine Action” — an activist group set up with the sole aim of disrupting firms they believe are supplying the Israeli military. They carried backpacks, a drill, a crowbar, a sledgehammer, an angle-grinder and smoke grenades.
> At 6am they went to a small industrial estate in the town to the premises of Teledyne Labtech, a tech company that employed 64 people. Bagshaw and Grey smashed their way through the front entrance and then destroyed computers, monitors and furniture as terrified workers stood by. The pair set off smoke bombs and used a fire extinguisher to spray the building with red paint. Hogg and Dixon climbed on the roof, drilled holes in it and smashed windows. All were arrested and later jailed. In court all four said they felt remorse over what they had done. It cost the firm £1.2 million.
> This, though, was not an isolated attack by Palestine Action. Today a Sunday Times investigation has revealed how Palestine Action campaigners have caused millions of pounds of damage to factories making equipment for the British Army and Royal Navy. An examination of open source material, including from X and Instagram, reveals that since the group was founded in July 2020, Palestine Action has claimed responsibility for 356 direct actions on British-based defence and engineering firms, banks, insurance companies, estate agents and property companies, accountancy firms, universities and local government buildings they claim have links to Israeli defence firms.
> It has recruited activists from groups such as Extinction Rebellion and is deploying tactics similar to the animal rights protesters who targeted Huntingdon Life Sciences in the early 2000s to disrupt the business of firms across the UK. Palestine Action has pledged to escalate their campaign of disruption over the next 12 months just as Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, announced billions of pounds in extra spending on the defence industry. The direct action involves protests, but also using vehicles to ram-raid factories; cutting internet cables; smashing up workshops and offices using weapons; vandalising buildings using red paint, including historic buildings in Oxford and Cambridge; destroying the bust of Israel’s first president at Manchester University; abusing of employees of some firms; and committing acts of burglary.
> A Palestine Action spokesman told The Sunday Times: “The primary goal of our direct action campaign is to rid Britain of Israeli weapons factories.” Analysis shows that the number of attacks has grown from 17 incidents in 2020 to 170 in 2024, with attacks continuing this year despite the ceasefire in Gaza. In total 76 different companies have been affected. Lord Walney, who until recently was the government’s adviser on political violence, said: “The number of attacks show the industrial scale of Palestine Action’s attempts to sabotage the British defence industry, terrorising working people and leaving our country weaker.”
> Ammori, 30, has a Palestinian father and an Iraqi mother, according to a Prospect magazine interview last year. Her great-grandfather was killed by British soldiers in the 1936 uprising, known as the Arab Revolt, and her family’s ancestral home destroyed. Her family was forced to leave their home in 1967, she says, by the Israeli military. She has taken part in direct actions, including scaling the roof of a factory. She is also a former campaign officer for far left anti-Israel activist group Palestine Solidarity Campaign, according to Walney’s report. Barnard, 51, has a history of protest with Extinction Rebellion. Another prominent Palestine Action member is Sarah Wilkinson, a former graphic designer, who is also reportedly a member of Extinction Rebellion North.
> Palestine Action has also been supported by the rapper Lowkey, who has been criticised by the independent reviewer of Prevent, the counterterrorism scheme, as having “lyrics promoting what I regard to be an antisemitic conspiracy theory about the ‘Zionist lobby’”. Another prominent member is Mike Lynch-White, a co-founder of Scientist Rebellion, a group of scientists involved in climate activism. Lynch-White, 33 from Lewes in Sussex, was given a 17-month sentence last year, suspended for 18 months, for being part of an Extinction Rebellion plot to disrupt Heathrow airport using drones. He has also been involved in Palestine Action attacks on the defence aviation firm APPH in Runcorn.
!ping UK&ISRAEL
Applesintyme on
Feel like a !ping EXTREMISM probably fits?
Either way, useful idiots. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a Russian hand guiding them – very handy to have a group smashing up military suppliers when Europe is trying to rearm
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> On the evening of December 8, 2022, four people met at a guest house in Presteigne, a small Welsh town in Powys, on the border with England. They were Ruth Hogg, 40, who had a master’s degree in fine art and worked in an art gallery in Wales; Susan Bagshaw, 55, an artist and former social worker also from Commins Coch in Wales; Morwenna Grey, 41, a carer from nearby Machynlleth; and Tristan Dixon, 34, a musician from Huddersfield. They chatted for a while then early the following morning met again. This time they were dressed in black balaclavas and bright red boiler suits with two words taped to the back: “Palestine Action” — an activist group set up with the sole aim of disrupting firms they believe are supplying the Israeli military. They carried backpacks, a drill, a crowbar, a sledgehammer, an angle-grinder and smoke grenades.
> At 6am they went to a small industrial estate in the town to the premises of Teledyne Labtech, a tech company that employed 64 people. Bagshaw and Grey smashed their way through the front entrance and then destroyed computers, monitors and furniture as terrified workers stood by. The pair set off smoke bombs and used a fire extinguisher to spray the building with red paint. Hogg and Dixon climbed on the roof, drilled holes in it and smashed windows. All were arrested and later jailed. In court all four said they felt remorse over what they had done. It cost the firm £1.2 million.
> This, though, was not an isolated attack by Palestine Action. Today a Sunday Times investigation has revealed how Palestine Action campaigners have caused millions of pounds of damage to factories making equipment for the British Army and Royal Navy. An examination of open source material, including from X and Instagram, reveals that since the group was founded in July 2020, Palestine Action has claimed responsibility for 356 direct actions on British-based defence and engineering firms, banks, insurance companies, estate agents and property companies, accountancy firms, universities and local government buildings they claim have links to Israeli defence firms.
> It has recruited activists from groups such as Extinction Rebellion and is deploying tactics similar to the animal rights protesters who targeted Huntingdon Life Sciences in the early 2000s to disrupt the business of firms across the UK. Palestine Action has pledged to escalate their campaign of disruption over the next 12 months just as Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, announced billions of pounds in extra spending on the defence industry. The direct action involves protests, but also using vehicles to ram-raid factories; cutting internet cables; smashing up workshops and offices using weapons; vandalising buildings using red paint, including historic buildings in Oxford and Cambridge; destroying the bust of Israel’s first president at Manchester University; abusing of employees of some firms; and committing acts of burglary.
> A Palestine Action spokesman told The Sunday Times: “The primary goal of our direct action campaign is to rid Britain of Israeli weapons factories.” Analysis shows that the number of attacks has grown from 17 incidents in 2020 to 170 in 2024, with attacks continuing this year despite the ceasefire in Gaza. In total 76 different companies have been affected. Lord Walney, who until recently was the government’s adviser on political violence, said: “The number of attacks show the industrial scale of Palestine Action’s attempts to sabotage the British defence industry, terrorising working people and leaving our country weaker.”
> Ammori, 30, has a Palestinian father and an Iraqi mother, according to a Prospect magazine interview last year. Her great-grandfather was killed by British soldiers in the 1936 uprising, known as the Arab Revolt, and her family’s ancestral home destroyed. Her family was forced to leave their home in 1967, she says, by the Israeli military. She has taken part in direct actions, including scaling the roof of a factory. She is also a former campaign officer for far left anti-Israel activist group Palestine Solidarity Campaign, according to Walney’s report. Barnard, 51, has a history of protest with Extinction Rebellion. Another prominent Palestine Action member is Sarah Wilkinson, a former graphic designer, who is also reportedly a member of Extinction Rebellion North.
> Palestine Action has also been supported by the rapper Lowkey, who has been criticised by the independent reviewer of Prevent, the counterterrorism scheme, as having “lyrics promoting what I regard to be an antisemitic conspiracy theory about the ‘Zionist lobby’”. Another prominent member is Mike Lynch-White, a co-founder of Scientist Rebellion, a group of scientists involved in climate activism. Lynch-White, 33 from Lewes in Sussex, was given a 17-month sentence last year, suspended for 18 months, for being part of an Extinction Rebellion plot to disrupt Heathrow airport using drones. He has also been involved in Palestine Action attacks on the defence aviation firm APPH in Runcorn.
!ping UK&ISRAEL
Feel like a !ping EXTREMISM probably fits?
Either way, useful idiots. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a Russian hand guiding them – very handy to have a group smashing up military suppliers when Europe is trying to rearm