YVETTE COOPER was criticised for defending the Palestine Action ban today after the High Court ruled it was unlawful and “disproportionate.”

The Foreign Secretary declined to reveal the advice she was given that informed her decision to pursue the ban of the direct action group under terrorism laws when she was serving as home secretary in July last year.

She claimed on the Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme that she “was given significant evidence and advice around risks of violence and risks from public safety, and that is what you take seriously.”

A group of 26 MPs and peers, including former minister Lord Peter Hain and MP John McDonnell, have written to the government urging it not to go ahead with its plans for appeal the court decision handed down on Friday.

They said: “We urge you to respect this decision, thus sending a signal that this Labour government will promote the rule of law, even when this feels inconvenient or embarrassing in the context of past mistakes.”

The ban remains in place for now and Ms Cooper’s successor as Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has said she will appeal against the court’s decision.

Today the Defend Our Juries campaign group, which organised mass protests against the ban which have seen more than 2,700 arrested under terror offences, said: “It’s difficult to see what plausible case the Home Office could make to appeal this case.

”And it’s also difficult to see who they’re appealing it for. The public is against them on this. So are Labour members and MPs. So is the TUC. So is the White House, The Times and MI5. The government’s got itself into a hole and if they had any sense they’d stop digging.”

Stop The War Coalition convener Lindsey German told the Morning Star: “The government looks completely foolish after the ruling that proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful and disproportionate. 

“Yvette Cooper who introduced it should resign, as should the head of the Met, Sir Mark Rowley. 

“It is time to accept civil disobedience against a genocide is not a crime and to drop all charges.”

Palestine Action’s co-founder Huda Ammori, who took the legal action against the Home Office over Ms Cooper’s decision, said it has “massively backfired on them.”