Jonathan Hall, KC, in the spotlight
- Jonathan Coulter
- Aug 17
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 24
Reviewer of Terrorism and State Threats Legislation
Jonathan Hall, is hardly a household name, but he has an interesting title, as the UK’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism and of State Threats legislation.
As such, he has an important role in keeping us safe and advising Government on the wisdom or otherwise of legislation to curtail such threats. He has the delicate job of doing this while not trampling over hard-won freedoms or making the world a more dangerous place.
Government’s previous employment of John Woodcock (aka Baron Walney), a man with paid roles with Defence and Business Lobbyists, as Independent Adviser on Domestic Violence and Disruption was of particular concern in this regard[1].
On May 19th, Hall set out his own views in a talk to the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange. In the light of this, we were curious as to how he saw his role. I sent him three separate letters on behalf of CAMPAIN, and he answered two of them in a polite and good-natured manner. In fact, he was pleased we had taken time to read his Policy Exchange talk. You can find the correspondence HERE.
But what about the substance of his replies? Significantly, he did not answer several important questions and dug his heels in on the proscription of Palestine Action.
Where do the threats lie?
In my first letter (bottom of this page), I noted that in his talk for Policy Exchange, Hall focused on threats from Russia, China, Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, but had nothing to say about Israel and the United States. There was an implicit assumption that countries that are nominally our allies could not threaten our ability to govern our own affairs.
I cited the role of both these countries in undermining the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn in the run-up to the 2019 election. I pointed out that this laid the groundwork for Israel lobbyists to virtually dictate a series of policies to the incoming leadership candidates, in the aftermath of the election, and for Labour to follow the Conservatives in diplomatically and militarily supporting Israel in its brutal aggression post-October 2023.
Could the actions of Israel and the United States not be construed as a state threat to the UK? Hall had nothing to say about this in his responses.
Hall had also described the internet as offering hostile intelligence officers a perfect way of directly recruiting, tasking and paying individuals, particularly as regards antisemitism and sponsoring contentious foreign policy issues such as Gaza. I answered saying that while states like Russia might try to stir up wedge issues, it was ill-informed to suggest that this would have much influence on the Palestine solidarity movement. It did not seem to have registered with him that the movement was thoroughly home-grown, and its leaders were very well-versed in the history of the conflict – giving Russian or Iranian spooks little scope to subvert it.
In his response of July 1st, Hall recognised that he was not very familiar with protest movements. However he said he was
more familiar with them than you may think, and I have had to think quite a lot about the application of terrorism legislation and criminal law in the context of protest.
I expressed concern that his statements could provide succour to the Home Office and Police as they arrest and mistreat journalists, activists and academics without due cause, particularly under the Terrorism Act of 2000. I also drew attention to the police’s lack of interest in acting on the International Criminal Court Act of 2001 which makes participation in, aiding, or being auxiliary to a genocide (something that could implicate people in Government) a criminal offence. He had nothing to say about the latter.
Lastly, I asked him to revisit the proscription of the political wing of Hamas, and Palestine Action. The former measure had destroyed opportunities for dialogue with the resistance movement, in contrast to the strategy successfully followed with the IRA, while criminalising Palestine Action placed a group that had never engaged in or incited physical harm in the same legal category as ISIS, al-Qaeda and neo-Nazi gangs. He did not say anything about Hamas, but answered as below regarding Palestine Action.
The bone of contention: threat neutrality
In Hall’s view, proscription was within the bounds of acceptability, and he had spelt this out in @terrowatchdog. He went on to say:
One of the principal lines I take is that terrorism legislation must be threat neutral. The correctness or otherwise of the political or religious or ideological cause that is being pursued is irrelevant. I am sceptical about people who say this cannot be terrorism because their cause is just or the people involved are brave. I think you fail to recognise that many extreme causes, for example on the extreme right wing, are considered by their adherents as saving people or getting justice.
This prompted us to write back on July 5th with this observation:
I …. put it to you that your comparison of the Palestinian cause with those of extreme right-wing groups does not hold water. When our Government is backing up a state that is committing such widely and authoritatively attested crimes, there is no way one can speak of “threat neutrality”.
I backed this up with references to international law, British Government policy re the occupied territories and expert opinion on the existence of genocide etc., all of which supported the Palestinian cause, and asked him how many far-right causes enjoyed the same level of support? Hall did not answer this question.
I went on to cite a CAMPAIN committee member who commented that the proscription:
obscures the important distinction between civil disobedience and terrorism, and will have the practical effect of undermining important democratic freedoms.
This is a major problem because people can be prosecuted under sections 11 to 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 not only for direct involvement, but for expressing support for a proscribed organisation.
Lastly, I raised the practicalities of enforcing such legislation, putting it to Hall that:
given that there is unquestionably significant support for the view that the scale and gravity of Israel’s crimes justifies the type of actions Palestine Action undertakes, it is questionable whether the police and courts will really be able to enforce sections 11 to 13. Furthermore, any prosecutions of people who have merely expressed their support for Palestine Action will inevitably be viewed as being politically motivated, further eroding trust in law enforcement and the justice system.
Hall did not comment on this observation. However, he wrote back on July 8th, saying:
I would encourage a distinction between the objective and the methodology. For example, people are free to support and advocate for a united Ireland, but the IRA are still terrorists. The same is true of stopping climate collapse removing 5G masts, both of which have motivated people to terrorist violence in this country. …..
We were unconvinced and in my final email of July 21st I said he had not addressed our previous point about the comparison of the Palestinian cause with those of extreme right-wing groups. I asked him to:
urgently review the inclusion within the definition of terrorism actions that “involve serious damage to property”. As currently formulated, that clause can be expected to undermine civil liberties. The distinction between civil disobedience and terrorism must be maintained and legislatively protected.
I also pointed out that:
the UK is obliged, under international treaties to which it is a party, to cease all support for any country which the International Court of Justice deems may be committing genocide. Indeed, we understand that under international law, a person (not just a state) can be held legally responsible if they had the capacity to act to stop a genocide, and failed to do so.
Concluding thoughts
I am in two minds about Jonathan Hall KC. On the one hand he seems to be avoiding engagement with any topic that does not suit his political masters. At the same time, he sounds quite open-minded, saying that he is happy to reconsider if there are any particular matters touching on the application of terrorism legislation.
Assuming the latter motivation, I again ask him to seek greater familiarity with the Palestine solidarity movement, and the problems it is seeking to highlight.
Hall’s argument about threat neutrality gives the government the right to criminalise protest under the Terrorism Act without considering the context in which that protest occurs. This is not only problematic where, as I explain above, he compares Palestine solidarity to far-right causes, but also where he compares it to campaigning against climate collapse or for the removal of 5G masts.
The latter causes are significantly different cases than Palestine solidarity. While Government and/or local authority positions on the environment and 5G masts are certainly influenced by business interests, they are more susceptible to democratic pressure. Successive Governments have made major progress in reducing emissions – even though their ability to act is severely limited by the actions of other nations that contribute much more to global warming than the UK. Who stops America using gas-guzzling cars or China from building more coal-fired power stations? And as for 5G masts, I can cite my own street where residents persuaded local councillors to oppose erection of a mast and their case was upheld by an independent adjudicator.
Those campaigning for Palestine face a singular problem, of having to battle the combined interests of the American-backed security state (which is closely allied to Israel), the arms industry, the mainstream media, and the Israel lobby, working largely in lockstep. The Israel lobby is very well-funded and singularly ruthless, with elements like the Campaign against Antisemitism and UK Lawyers for Israel [2] systematically engaging in smear tactics and Lawfare to stifle free expression and advocacy in favour of the Palestinians. It is in this context that Palestine Action became an important vehicle of protest.
To understand this, one only needs to read Clare Hinchliffe’s account, in The Observer of 17th August, of what turned her 21-year-old daughter Zoe into a militant member of the group. When fellow citizens look the other way rather than face the horrors of what Israel is doing, and Britain's complicity with it, some young people gravitate towards direct action. While one may condemn such people for taking the law into their own hands, the solution lies in sorting out our faulty news media; it needs to facilitate factually-based discussion of the situation in Israel/Palestine without deference to powerful vested interests.
I would strongly recommend that Hall spends a couple of hours in conversation with a key authority on the situation in Palestine, such as one or other of the two leading Israeli historians resident in the UK (Avi Shlaim or Illan Pappe). It would help him advocate for a legal framework that facilitates legitimate protest.
[1] It is worth reading Woodcock’s Wikipedia page. It shows him working within the right-wing faction of the Labour Party during most of the last decade, after which he supported the Conservatives, who in 2020 appointed him Adviser on Political Violence and Disruption. It was only in February 2025 that he was dismissed from this role it being alleged he had a conflict of interests due to his lobbying jobs. He was strongly pro-Israel, having served as Director of Labour Friends of Israel from 2011 to 2013, and in 2020 was named as part of a consortium, led by Robby Gibb and including William Shawcross and John Ware, that put in a less-than transparent bid to purchase the assets of the Jewish Chronicle.
(2) Additional noted dated 22nd August. Since I wrote this blog a reader has drawn attention to the fact that Hall's father-in-law, Lord Dyson, is a Patron of the agressively anti-Palestinian UK Lawyers for Israel, and that Hall is on record as wanting to defend his family's synagogue. This suggests a possible conflict of interest with his Government role.