THE National Security (State Threats) Bill arrived in Parliament on June 9 2026. By the time you read this article, it will have been rushed through every stage of the House of Commons in a single sitting day.

Essentially a last sabotage by departing PM Keir Starmer, this is legislation that fundamentally reshapes civil liberties, criminalises political belief and hands sweeping, unchecked powers to the Home Secretary. 

It allows the government to treat almost any dissent in the same way it is treating the “terrorism” of anti-genocide protest. And it was passed in a way to eliminate meaningful scrutiny or challenge.

Buried within the Bill’s provisions is power for the Home Secretary to designate as a threat any organisation she considers prejudicial to the “safety or interests” of the United Kingdom, and to make the expression of support for that organisation a criminal offence carrying up to 14 years in prison. Just expressing support. Holding a placard. Saying the words. That is the conduct this government wishes to imprison you for.

The phrase “safety or interests” is not defined anywhere in the legislation. Worse, the Bill includes a reversal of British legal principle that the state has to prove its case. Under this Bill, if a person is accused of support for a designated group, not knowing it was designated is no defence.

The law assumes they “should have known” and the burden is on the accused to prove, not just that they didn’t know but that they couldn’t be expected to have known. So the state can apply the Bill to anything it wishes and its victims who didn’t know at the time that “their” group would be targeted have to prove that their lack of knowledge was reasonable.

The Bill is therefore a deliberate grant, by government to itself, of undefined discretionary power. Under provisions of this kind, the protection of the law becomes entirely dependent on the judgment of a single political figure — affected by all those who buy or curry their favour. History offers us no comfort on what governments tend to do with powers of this nature.

As the Bill was being introduced, more than 100 people were arrested for holding placards in support of a group that has taken direct action against British complicity in a live international genocide.

Palestine Action (PA) targeted Elbit Systems: Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, which operates factories on British soil. The British High Court, in February 2026, ruled their proscription under the Terrorism Act to be “disproportionate and unlawful.”

The Court of Appeal reversed that ruling on June 15 2026. The court’s ruling said that PA could not be compared with the Suffragettes because PA organised secretly and used violence against property. The Suffragettes planted bombs, organised sabotage, targeted politicians and sent letter bombs to achieve the vote for women.

Since the PA proscription, more than 3,000 people have been arrested during protests. In April 2026, 523 people were detained in Trafalgar Square for displaying placards. Their ages ranged from 27 to 82. Many were dressed as Suffragettes. Many were disabled.

The same government that is criminalising solidarity with those who oppose British arms sales to Israel has continued to authorise those arms sales. In the final quarter of 2024, Britain approved £127.6 million worth of military equipment to Israel, a country whose leader is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity.

This was more than the combined total of the preceding three years. Between October 2023 and March 2025, over 160,000 military items were shipped. Weapon components shipped illegally by a British firm were seized in Belgium in just April this year.

The RAF has conducted more than 606 documented surveillance flights over Gaza from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus during a genocide now approaching three years in duration. The UN special rapporteur concluded in their October 2025 report that these flights frequently coincided with major Israeli military operations, and characterised British conduct as part of a pattern of “third-state complicity” in grave breaches of international law. At the same time, Israeli officials involved in the genocide have been granted special immunity to visit Britain.

In other words: Britain is selling weapons to a state under ICC indictment, flying surveillance missions over a territory where those weapons are deployed, granting immunity to alleged war criminals — and arresting people at home who object to this. The National Security (State Threats) Bill seeks to make that objection carry a 14-year prison sentence.

This hastily-imposed legislation is being used to construct a legal environment in which those who name British complicity in genocide and atrocities face criminalisation.

A Human Rights Watch report published in January 2026 documented that the Labour government is expanding the Conservatives’ anti-protest laws rather than reversing them.

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 passed by Parliament earlier this year gives police powers to restrict protests based on “cumulative disruption” — a demonstration can be curtailed because of an unrelated protest that occurred weeks earlier somewhere in a loosely defined area.

There is no legal definition of “an area.” Human Rights Watch called this “a framework that future governments could use to erode fundamental human rights and the rule of law.” That danger is not in the future, it’s happening now.

The independent statutory review of the National Security Act 2023 warned in December 2025 that the Act’s provisions could, if applied broadly, criminalise journalism, political advocacy, academic research and humanitarian campaigning. The National Security (State Threats) Bill widens those provisions even further — and it was passed by Members of Parliament, in one day, that day was June 17 2026.

There is no justification for that speed other than evasion of scrutiny.

The international human rights framework is unambiguous. Britain is legally bound by the Human Rights Act 1998, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights to protect freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. The protections those instruments provide are not optional. They are not suspended by inconvenience. They are not subordinate to the political interests of the government of the day.

Legislation that places citizens in prison for holding placards is an attack on the rule and credibility of law, not a protection. Law is protected by the courage to say, clearly and without equivocation, that a government which sells weapons to ICC-indicted leaders while arresting the people who object is not upholding national security. It is betraying it.

And the government is pointing this weapon in one direction only. It refused even to mention Israel in its “inquiry” into foreign state interference, but it is targeting Palestine solidarity activists, anti-war protesters, those who name British complicity in a live genocide. 

Those not targeted include corporations supplying weapons and components, ministers signing off export licences, officials authorising surveillance flights, advocates of war and colonialism. The aims and operating principles of this legislation are perfectly clear.

The law protects power. Where power is complicit in atrocity, the law protects atrocity.

If we allow this Bill to pass unopposed, we will have consented to a world in which a single politician can criminalise solidarity.

A world in which expressing a political belief in support of those fighting British collaboration with a state under ICC investigation is a criminal offence.

A world in which an 82-year-old can be placed under terror arrest for standing in a public square with a piece of card. This legislation has nothing to do with state threats, and everything to do with silencing the people who refuse to look away from what the state is doing in our name. This government is not protecting national security. It is protecting impunity.

Now Keir Starmer, the architect of this Orwellian legislation, has announced his resignation.

New Makerfield MP Andy Burnham has confirmed he is standing to become the next Prime Minister and former health secretary Wes Streeting has supported Burnham rather than stand against him. Burnham, or whoever succeeds Starmer, must immediately withdraw this Bill, or at minimum subject it to full parliamentary scrutiny over a reasonable period.

They must also repeal the anti-protest provisions accumulated since 2022 that courts have themselves found unlawful. They must suspend all remaining arms export licences to Israel in compliance with our obligations under international humanitarian law and ICC warrants. And they must publish a full account of British surveillance operations over Gaza and announce two immediate, independent public inquiries.

The first must be into Britain’s role in the Gaza genocide as Jeremy Corbyn has requested. The second must examine the protest policing that Human Rights Watch and domestic civil liberties organisations have repeatedly demanded.

What we have witnessed under Keir Starmer’s Labour government and previous governments is the acceleration of legal architecture designed to make dissent dangerous, solidarity criminal, and accountability impossible. This must end now. 

The National Security (State Threats) Bill is not national security legislation. It is an attempt to make solidarity a crime. And we must condemn it.

Claudia Webbe was the UK Member of Parliament for Leicester East (2019 –2024). You can follow her at https://www.facebook.com/claudiaforLE/ and https://x.com/claudiawebbe