Countries are competing to see which can carry out mass surveillance the best

I think it's almost unthinkable an average citizen would urinate in an elevator, anywhere.

Same Filton case.

You had the bizarre situation that some of defendants dismissed their lawyers because the lawyers were constrained in what they could say in the defence of their clients - so the defendents did there own closing speeches.

If anything, the courts did them a solid. "We're not going to mention that the government thinks you're terrorists. We're not even here to determine that. Don't try justifying your actions in terms of being a irredeemable terrorist wanting to inflict terror on your enemies (such as arms manufacturers)". If anything, telling the jury about the group's terrorist connections could bias them towards conviction, not away.

The courts have a narrow scope. This specific trial did not need to decide if the Elbit wreckers were terrorists or not.

The government has a wider scope, and literally voted Palestine Action into being a terrorist organisation. That decision was then affirmed by the courts on appeal. If Palestine Action had not been going around breaking into arms manufacturers, they could well have overturned the governments' proscription. But Palestine Action going around doing smashy smashy smashy let the appeal judges see that the government were right. At no point did Palestine Action ever need to smash anything -- they chose to smash things up. They were banking on getting the benefit of committing political violence (intimidating suppliers et al into leaving "the enemy") while not suffering the consequences (being designated terrorists). In short, they fucked around and are now finding out.

Judges don't need jury trials to find facts, they do bench trials without juries at all. A jury doesn't "give power to the judge"; the judge already has the power. The jury only finds answers to questions of fact, and even then the judge can bring in findings of fact from other cases if they so wish, so they jury did their part but they don't run the show.

We don't live in a country with "natural justice" (nasty, brutish and short?), we live in the UK. And in the UK, Parliament is sovereign. It can make, and has made, ex post facto laws. It's independent of the court's decision, and there's no judicial review of primary legislation either. You could challenge it under article 7 of the ECHR, but they may conclude that giving an already convicted criminal a longer sentence doesn't breach that. This is why you shouldn't poke the bear until it names you personally in legislation.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2025/803/pdfs/uksiem_202...

Again, courts try specific cases. Palestine Action thought it could get away with a campaign of terror, provided it colluded in secret and tasked "unrelated" people with each outrage, and they could all take the relatively minor hit for each incident. The government has seen past that facade, all these "unrelated" people know they're acting in concert for a larger campaign.

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Final-op...

> We have balanced the free speech and freedom of assembly rights of individuals including: (i) the rights of the many law-abiding citizens wishing peacefully to protest, hold placards and otherwise support Palestine Action, and (ii) the “chilling effect” that proscription may have upon those wishing to support the Palestinian cause, but who may be dissuaded from doing so by fear of committing offences under the 2000 Act. [...] We have concluded [...] on the basis of authority from the European Court of Human Rights (the ECtHR), states enjoy a wide margin of appreciation in relation to the prohibition of indirect support for terrorism [...] We have decided that these factors are outweighed by the matters to be placed on the other side of the balance, including:

> (i) Palestine Action is not an organisation engaged in activities falling within the well-established tradition of peaceful protest,

> (ii) Palestine Action is, instead, an organisation that is concerned in terrorism as defined in the 2000 Act and is engaged in causing serious damage to property using weapons, including sledgehammers, presenting very real risks of injury to members of the public,

> (iii) Palestine Action’s “Underground Manual” published in late 2023 advocates the disruption and destruction of and damage to its targets, and avoiding detection,

> (iv) Palestine Action’s nationwide campaign was escalating and was not being pursued with any restraint,

> (v) that campaign was intended to close down the operations of companies pursuing lawful businesses, and has involved direct criminal action against businesses and institutions, including key national infrastructure and defence firms that provide services and supplies to support Ukraine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the “Five Eyes” allies and the UK defence enterprise, and

> (vi) a key benefit of proscribing Palestine Action was to prevent it from funding terrorism and to degrade its covert infrastructure characterised by secret cells

So even though it is sad that peaceful protestors cannot technically pledge their support for Palestine Action, and the law does have a chilling effect on people who have done no real wrong by protesting with signs... the court found proscription was proportionate, because Palestine Action actual is carrying out a multi-year nationwide campaign of violence and destruction against arms companies and anyone related to them, with the deliberate political aim of shutting down these legitimate businesses. Elbit, Thaler, Leonardo et al are getting no special favours, they're just getting the same protection that every business deserves - the right not to be smashed up by illegally conspiring saboteurs.

Anyway, the lawyer in the Elbit case has just been accused of contempt of court - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgqjrj4wz9o - for peddling unproven conspiracy theories in front of the jury. Let's see how that goes.