The National, on UK Politics, 20 October 2026

3.0out of 10Minor

UK national security adviser’s wife Sarah Helm calls for Palestine Action ban to be lifted

Tap a highlight to see why it matters.1 finding

Sarah Helm, the writer and wife of Britain’s National Security Adviser <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uk/2025/07/23/is-jonathan-powell-the-uks-most-influential-diplomat/" target="_blank" rel="" title="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uk/2025/07/23/is-jonathan-powell-the-uks-most-influential-diplomat/">Jonathan Powell</a>, has called for the UK's ban on the Palestine Action group to be lifted, after a police investigation into her social media posts.

The UK has proscribed the pro-Palestine group as a terrorist organisation, and expressing support for the group is a criminal offence. Police said at the weekend they closed their investigation of an earlier post by Ms Helm, and decided they would take no action as it did not meet the criminal threshold. On Monday, Ms Helm asked: “Where do I sign?” in response to a letter calling for the ban to be lifted and backing Irish author <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uk/2026/10/14/sally-rooney-can-no-longer-sell-books-in-the-uk-due-to-palestine-action-support/" target="_blank" rel="" title="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uk/2026/10/14/sally-rooney-can-no-longer-sell-books-in-the-uk-due-to-palestine-action-support/">Sally Rooney</a> and her publisher Faber after they decided her books would no longer be sold in the UK.

Ms Rooney had been warned her plan to donate earnings from sales could be considered a criminal offence. Ms Helm, a former Middle East correspondent for <i>The Independent</i> newspaper, had written “God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action” in response to a clip criticising Ms Rooney. Her stance on Palestine Action, which was banned in the UK in 2025 , has led to questions whether it will affect Mr Powell’s role within government.

More than 3,500 people have been <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uk/2026/07/31/palestine-actions-many-nans-put-themselves-on-the-line-to-inflate-uk-terror-arrests/" target="_blank" rel="" title="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uk/2026/07/31/palestine-actions-many-nans-put-themselves-on-the-line-to-inflate-uk-terror-arrests/">arrested for supporting Palestine Action</a> in the UK, mostly for holding up placards at demonstrations.

Last month, the UK imposed sanctions aimed at illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said the Israeli government was turning a blind eye to the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians. Mr Powell visited Israel earlier this month in a bid to persuade the Israeli government not to close the UK’s consulate general in Jerusalem, in response to the sanctions. The Consulate opened in 1838 and handles the country's relations with Palestinians in ​the city as ⁠well as in the West Bank and Gaza.

It also provides consular services to Palestinians. Mr Powell held talks with Israeli officials but ultimately failed to reach an agreement to keep it open. Instead it was downgraded to a mission and the number of staff reduced from 30 to a handful. However, the compromise meant the UK did not enact a <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uk/2026/10/06/uk-threatens-tit-for-tat-after-israel-rebuffs-plea-on-closure-of-jerusalem-consulate/" target="_blank" rel="" title="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uk/2026/10/06/uk-threatens-tit-for-tat-after-israel-rebuffs-plea-on-closure-of-jerusalem-consulate/">tit-for-tat</a> removal of Israeli diplomatic staff from Britain.

In her latest social media post, Ms Helm wrote of Ms Rooney: “She’s free yes and found not guilty of posting a terrorist tweet, whereas others guilty of holding terrorist banners? So where do I sign the letter calling for such absurdity to halt and for Palestine Action to be unbanned under the Terrorism act?” Ms Helm’s support of Ms Rooney has led to scrutiny of her social media output, which has been frequent and vociferous in backing pro-Palestinian causes.

Former Foreign Office official Ben Judah has highlighted posts made by Ms Helm after the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel by Hamas, saying they were “genuinely shocking”. In response to comments from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s saying Israel had a right to defend itself after “terrorists struck at the heart of Israel capturing and killing innocent women and children”, Ms Helm wrote “Not for the first time Von der Leyen is spouting empty dangerous glib tropes on a subject she apparently doesn’t understand”.

Read the original article on thenationalnews.com (opens in a new tab)
What we found (1)

The National reports Sarah Helm's call for the Palestine Action ban to be lifted, notes that police took no action over her earlier post, and gives context on mass arrests and the Jerusalem consulate dispute. Its one weakness is that it calls the airbase incident behind the ban an "attack" without saying what happened, which leaves the reader to picture something more violent than a break-in and spray-painting of aircraft.

  1. Uses a loaded word

    Minor

    “after an attack on a UK airbase”

    Why this matters
    In its own voice The National calls the incident that led to the ban "an attack on a UK airbase" and never says what the incident was.
    The impression it gives
    A reader may picture an armed or violent assault on a military base as the reason Palestine Action was proscribed.
    The context
    Other coverage of the same story reports that two members broke into RAF Brize Norton and spray-painted two military aircraft red. The article never names the base or describes the act, so the word "attack" carries a verdict the article's own facts do not supply.

    How we know

    Show it in the article

What it gets right

  • “decided they would take no action as it did not meet the criminal threshold”

    It reports early and plainly that police cleared Ms Helm. The reader does not come away thinking she was found to have broken the law.

  • “mostly for holding up placards at demonstrations”

    It tells the reader what the thousands of arrests under the ban were actually for. That gives a fair picture of how the proscription is being enforced.

  • “illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank”

    It calls the settlements illegal and the West Bank occupied in the outlet's own voice, in line with the ICJ's advisory opinion (R1).

How other outlets reported it

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