More than 300 arrested after supporting Palestine Action during US embassy protest

The Metropolitan Police arrested 325 people at a demonstration backing the proscribed group Palestine Action, with 320 of them detained on suspicion of expressing support for a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act.

The force gave the figures in a post on X on Sunday.

The protest outside the US embassy in Nine Elms, south-west London, drew hundreds of people on Saturday, many carrying signs reading: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”

Support for the group became an offence under the Terrorism Act when it was proscribed in June 2025.

The gathering was organised by the activist group Defend Our Juries and came ahead of a Supreme Court appeal on November 4 against Palestine Action's designation as a terror group.

Officers began taking demonstrators into custody one by one at around midday on Saturday, at times carrying those who would not walk.

As people were arrested and loaded into police vans parked on Ponton Road, just off the embassy grounds, many in the crowd applauded and chanted “free, free Palestine” before the detainees were transferred to police stations.

One protester scaled a tree outside the embassy during the gathering and waved a placard reading “God help us. Teachers who support Palestine. Palestine Action”, while those below chanted “tree, tree Palestine”.

Further signs in the crowd read “we are protesters, not terrorists” and “heroes, not terrorists”, and some demonstrators wore keffiyehs and waved Palestinian flags.

Among those who attended was Charles Allison, a 75-year-old retired lawyer who travelled from his home in Cumbria, and who said he was there because he “feared for our liberties”.

Mr Allison said “I decided that I ought to try and do something, and this is the little bit that I’m doing.

“I fear for our civil liberties, which are being devalued and watered down, even by this new Labour Government.

“So I’m dejected, but enthused that there are so many wonderful people protesting.”

Asked why he was protesting on Saturday, Mr Allison said: “To show that there is no declining level of protest.

“I hope the Supreme Court justices, they won’t necessarily be influenced by it, but I hope that they will take a long-term view of what is happening in this country and decide that the proscription was unlawful, as I believe it was.

“I speak as an ex-lawyer, so it’s uncomfortable for me to break the law deliberately. But I felt that I could do no other.”

Mr Allison was taken away by two police officers just before 1pm, after he was told he posed a “threat”.