Police Rule Out Action Over a Palestine Action Post
The Metropolitan Police will take no further action over a post about the proscribed group written by Sarah Helm, a journalist and the wife of the national security adviser. Specialist officers assessed it and “determined that it did not meet the criminal threshold”. She had written: “God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action.”
The post was a reply in a discussion about Sally Rooney, who says she can no longer sell her books in the United Kingdom because of her support for the group. The force’s statement is narrow and worth quoting exactly: it was “made aware of a post on X relating to Palestine Action” on Thursday 15 October, the post “was assessed by specialist officers and it was determined that it did not meet the criminal threshold”, and “no further police action will be taken”. The understanding is that there was insufficient evidence the post was capable of encouraging support for a proscribed organisation, which is the offence that would have been in question. Two things make this more than a footnote. The first is who wrote it: the spouse of the official who advises the prime minister on national security, which is why the assessment was always going to be reported. The second is the test itself — proscription makes expressions of support criminal, and where the line sits between sympathy and encouragement is being drawn case by case, in public, by police rather than by Parliament.