PROTESTERS gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square shouting “we are all Palestine Action” yesterday as Home Secretary Yvette Cooper confirmed plans to ban the group under terrorism laws for its direct action campaigns.

Hundreds waved Palestine flags and chanted at the top of the square, parts of which were cordoned off for an event.

Some protesters spilled onto the road and staged a brief roadblock before being arrested by the Metropolitan Police under Section 14 of the Public Order Act.

Protesters clashed with police to resist the arrests, with one woman shouting “that’s too much force” and others chanting: “Let them go.”

The protest was originally set to take place outside Parliament, where there was more space, but the police imposed an exclusion zone.

Ms Cooper announced plans to proscribe Palestine Action, effectively branding it a terrorist organisation and making it a criminal offence to support or be a member of the group, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

A draft order will be laid before Parliament on Monday and, if approved by MPs and peers, the ban could take effect by Friday.

On Friday, Palestine Action activists painted two planes inside RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire red due to Britain’s complicity in the Gaza genocide.

“Proscription represents a legitimate response to the threat posed by Palestine Action,” Ms Cooper said, adding that the group’s activities meet the legal threshold under the Terrorism Act 2000.

She claimed the ban would not affect lawful protest groups or others campaigning on Palestine.

But speaking at the protest, Stop the War Coalition’s Terina Hine said: “It is not just so-called criminal activity that they are trying to ban.

“They have tried, right from the beginning, to ban the marches that Stop the War, along with other organisations, have been organising.

“Every single time we announce a demonstration, they place similar restrictions to the ones that are placed on this demonstration today.

“The banning of Palestine Action is, and will be, a threat to all of us.”

Speakers included the mother of Filton 18 activist Zoe Rogers, former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg of Cage International, and a spokeswoman from the Palestine Youth Movement.

“The aim of zionism and British imperialism is to fragment and demoralise us, but we cannot and will not let them win,” the spokeswoman said.

“We must unify in resisting repression with strong organisation, unity and building people power. We will make support for zionism and imperialism untenable for the British state.”

Palestine Action called the Home Secretary’s announcement “unhinged,” saying in a statement: “The real crime here is not red paint being sprayed on these war planes, but the war crimes that have been enabled with those planes because of the UK government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.

“It also smacks of rank hypocrisy from [Prime Minister] Keir Starmer, who rightly defended protesters who broke into an RAF base in 2003 to stop US bombers heading to Iraq.

“He is now cowing down to the pro-Israel groups and the private arms companies who have been lobbying government to stop Palestine Action because we have successfully hit the profits of these blood-soaked companies and disrupted Israel's war machine.”

The group said its members include teachers, nurses, students and parents engaging in non-violent action and that ranking them with terrorist groups like Isis, National Action or Boko Haram is “plainly preposterous.”

“The Home Secretary’s statement makes a series of categorically false claims which have been made by the pro-Israel groups which lobbied the government to proscribe us,” the statement said.

“We have instructed lawyers who are pursuing all avenues for legal challenge.”

Trade unions, campaign groups and MPs expressed anger at the Home Secretary’s announcement.

Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn called it “as absurd as it is authoritarian,” adding: “It represents a draconian assault on the democratic right to protest and is a disgraceful attempt to hide the real meaning of violence: the mass murder of Palestinians.

“The UK government is complicit in genocide, and we see this latest move for what it is: an act of desperation from a government trying to shield itself from accountability.”

Labour MP Nadia Whittome said: “Targeting non-violent protesters in this way is a misuse of terrorism-related powers.

“It sets a dangerous precedent, which governments in future could further use against their critics.”