The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been forced to review its base security measures in the wake of an incident in the early hours of 20 June 2025 in which activists from pro-Palestinian protest group Palestine Action broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and damaged two Royal Air Force (RAF) Voyager aerial refuelling/transport aircraft.
Footage posted by Palestinian Action on the X social media channel showed two activists on electric scooters on the tarmac at Brize Norton and footage of red paint being sprayed into one of the Voyagers’ turbofans using a repurposed fire extinguisher. The group claimed the aircraft had been further damaged with crowbars before both activists successfully escaped.
Damage to the aircraft could run into the tens of thousands of pounds.
Palestinian Action claimed in a 20 June statement on its website that, in addition to refuelling UK aircraft, the Voyagers are used to refuel Israeli and US fighters: a false assertion, since the Voyagers’ hose-and-drogue aerial refuelling system cannot substitute for the boom refuelling system used by US Air Force and Israeli Air Force combat aircraft.
Over the last five years Palestinian Action has conducted hundreds of acts of activist vandalism across the UK, targeting defence companies the group considers to be associated with military action against Palestinians via work involving Israeli defence companies, most notably Elbit Systems. In April 2024 Palestinian Action was also involved in a paint attack on the MoD headquarters in London, while on 15 May 2025 a Boeing 767 used by US Transportation Command was daubed with paint while refuelling at Shannon Airport in Ireland.
The attack on Brize Norton, however, poses particularly difficult questions for the UK MoD and the UK government as a whole. Clearly, security at the base, and potentially other RAF bases, is inadequate, with the implication being that an actual terrorist group could have inflicted significantly more damage than that perpetrated by Palestinian Action on 20 June.
As the RAF’s largest air base, RAF Brize Norton is home to the RAF’s Air Mobility Force. As well as the RAF’s nine-strong core Voyager fleet the base hosts the RAF’s eight C-17 and 22 A400M Atlas transport aircraft. At Brize Norton the RAF thus has a lot of its big eggs in one basket, no doubt for reasons of logistics and maintenance efficiency, given that strategic considerations would not warrant so many key assets being in the same place during wartime.
Security at Brize Norton includes a large perimeter fence, security cameras and sensors, manned security checkpoints and occasional patrols. However, the sheer size of the base – it covers almost 5 km2 and has the RAF’s longest runway at 3,050 m – presents a security challenge that is now being forcefully re-addressed.
With regard to acting against Palestinian Action legally, UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper stated on 23 June that she is moving to proscribe Palestine Action under anti-terror laws, despite the fact that the group is not, in fact, a terrorist organisation. However, citing the group’s “long history” of criminal damage, Cooper maintained that the group’s activities “meet the threshold set out in the statutory tests established under the Terrorism Act 2000”.
Cooper maintained that those measures are specific to Palestine Action and do not affect lawful protest groups campaigning about the Middle East.
“It is vitally important that those seeking to protest peacefully, including pro-Palestinian groups, those opposing the actions of the Israeli government, and those demanding changes in the UK’s foreign policy, can continue to do so,” Cooper stated.
In response, Palestinian Action stated, “It is plainly preposterous to rank us with terrorist groups like ISIS, National Action and Boko Haram. We have instructed lawyers who are pursuing all avenues for legal challenge.”
Amnesty International UK issued a statement on 23 June that read, “Amnesty International is seriously concerned by the Home Secretary’s announcement that she intends to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. The UK has an overly broad definition of terrorism and proscribing a direct-action protest group like Palestine Action risks an unlawful interference with the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. Terrorism legislation must always be treated with the highest degree of caution and restraint, as it allows the state to curtail due process and interfere with other human rights in ways that would violate international human rights law.”
The organisation added, “Government embarrassment at security breaches is no proper basis for excessive and disproportionate interferences with human rights. It is precisely this kind of unlawful government action that critics of the UK’s terrorism laws warned would come one day.”
