Police Assess Palestine Action Post by Security Adviser’s Wife
The Metropolitan Police is assessing a post on X by the author Sarah Helm, wife of the national security adviser Jonathan Powell, which read: “God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action.” The group is proscribed as a terrorist organisation. Downing Street said the views were held by “an individual who does not represent the government in any capacity”.
Ms Helm was defending Sally Rooney, whose novels will not be supplied to UK booksellers after she pledged her royalties to the group. The Campaign Against Antisemitism says Mr Powell “must publicly denounce this rhetoric if he is to continue in post”, and Reform’s Danny Kruger has written to the prime minister; the Green leader, Zack Polanski, said she was “speaking absolute common sense”. The stakes are wider than one post: an estimated 3,700 people have been arrested for showing support since proscription, about 2,500 charged, and a challenge to the ban reaches the Supreme Court next month. Mr Powell, appointed by Sir Keir Starmer, kept his post under Mr Burnham.