What is UK’s newly appointed Muslim Home Secretary’s stance on Palestine Action?

Defence Secretary John Healey has warned that backers of Palestine Action, a group outlawed by the Government earlier this summer, must face legal consequences if they break the law, stressing the importance of avoiding “two-tier policing.”

His comments came as Shabana Mahmood assumed the role of Home Secretary in Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet reshuffle, replacing Yvette Cooper, who has been moved to the Foreign Office. The Prime Minister urged his revamped team on Friday to “go up a gear” in delivering on policy priorities, including immigration and economic growth.

Read more: Shabana Mahmood becomes UK’s first Muslim woman Home Secretary

Pressed on whether the new Home Secretary would take a different stance toward the banned group, Healey told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, “I expect Shabana Mahmood to be just as tough as Yvette Cooper and I expect her to defend the decision the Government’s taken on Palestine Action, because of what some of its members are responsible for and were planning.”

Tensions escalated on Saturday after a demonstration in Parliament Square. Scotland Yard reported that more than 425 people had been arrested by 9:00 PM, and condemned what it described as “intolerable” abuse directed at officers.

Read more: Over 400 arrested at London protest against Palestine Action ban

Organisers of the rally, Defend Our Juries, rejected the account, calling the arrests “astonishing” and insisting that those detained were merely “sitting and holding signs.”

Healey, however, defended the police response, “If we want to avoid a two-tier policing and justice system in this country, when people break the law, there have to be consequences. That’s what was happening yesterday, and I, we, almost everybody shares the agony when we see the images from Gaza, the anguish when we see the man-made starvation, and for people who want to voice their concern and protest, I applaud them."

“But that does not require them to link it to support for Palestine Action, a proscribed group,” he continued.

Palestine Action was officially banned in July after it admitted involvement in damaging two Voyager aircraft at RAF Brize Norton on June 20. Membership or public support for the group is now classified as a criminal offence under anti-terror legislation, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years.

The controversy is likely to intensify as the Home Office prepares to appeal a High Court ruling that allowed the group’s co-founder, Huda Ammori, to move forward with a legal challenge against its proscription.

Ammori has argued that the ban, introduced by then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, is unlawful and undermines the right to protest.