Eurasia Press & News
Keir Starmer’s government held a private meeting with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons company, Declassified has found.
The meeting occurred in December 2024 and was attended by three representatives from Elbit Systems and three officials from Yvette Cooper’s Home Office.
It took place months after Israeli forces used an Elbit drone to kill three British military veterans in Gaza who were protecting a humanitarian aid convoy.
The revelation comes in documents obtained by Declassified through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Home Office, who refused to detail which officials were present or what was discussed.
It said that a recording of the meeting was made “but by mutual agreement [with Elbit] this was agreed… not to be released” through FOI.
Under the previous Conservative government, the Home Office also met with Elbit Systems and attempted to encourage the UK police to crack down on pro-Palestine activism.
Elbit’s efforts to counter Palestine Action in Britain seem to have gone even further. Declassified can reveal the company has its own “intelligence cell” and shares “information with the [UK] police across the country on a two weekly basis”.
Elbit did not respond to a request for comment.
Keir Starmer wearing glasses and a suit stands next to Yvette Cooper
Keir Starmer with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. (Photo: Benjamin Cremel / Alamy)
Keir Starmer’s government held a private meeting with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons company, Declassified has found.
The meeting occurred in December 2024 and was attended by three representatives from Elbit Systems and three officials from Yvette Cooper’s Home Office.
It took place months after Israeli forces used an Elbit drone to kill three British military veterans in Gaza who were protecting a humanitarian aid convoy.
The revelation comes in documents obtained by Declassified through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Home Office, who refused to detail which officials were present or what was discussed.
It said that a recording of the meeting was made “but by mutual agreement [with Elbit] this was agreed… not to be released” through FOI.
Under the previous Conservative government, the Home Office also met with Elbit Systems and attempted to encourage the UK police to crack down on pro-Palestine activism.
Elbit’s efforts to counter Palestine Action in Britain seem to have gone even further. Declassified can reveal the company has its own “intelligence cell” and shares “information with the [UK] police across the country on a two weekly basis”.
Elbit did not respond to a request for comment.
Elbit’s ‘Intelligence cell’
British authorities have come under sustained pressure to curtail pro-Palestine activism, raising questions about the purpose of the recent meeting between the Home Office and Elbit.
In Spring 2023, Palestine Action launched a major campaign against UAV Tactical Systems, a drone factory in Leicester owned by Elbit and Thales, a French arms firm.
In the midst of that campaign, Britain’s policing minister Chris Philp held a briefing with Leicestershire police’s deputy chief constable regarding the “ongoing protests”.
A police report seen by Declassified provides key details of what was discussed. “17:00 Brief Policing Minister and Home Office Team”, the file notes. “Real push to support company legitimate business. Suggest proactive work with Meta Facebook and Instagram”.
The document continues: “Pushes for remand of those arrested and supports proactive action, show of police and clear[ly] expects us to be taking action against those that commit crime. Focus not on peaceful protestors and facilitating that but on the company”.
In other words, the Home Office was apparently instructing the police to prioritise the company and remand activists rather than facilitate freedom of assembly and expression, liberties enshrined in the Human Rights Act.
Other documents seen by Declassified indicate how the Israeli arms firm has taken matters into its own hands in Britain.
Elbit Systems UK has “its own intelligence cell and share[s] information with the Police across the country on a two weekly basis”, a police file observes.
Crackdown on Palestine Action
This is far from the only evidence to indicate Elbit’s close proximity to the Home Office, and to suggest Palestine Action has been subject to a political crackdown in Britain.
In August 2020, just one month after Palestine Action was launched, then UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab met with Orit Farkash-Hacohen, Israel’s former minister of strategic affairs.
Farkash-Hacohen pressed Raab on direct action protests against Israeli companies in Britain, noting how “the London offices of Elbit Systems” had been attacked for the fourth time in as many weeks.
Raab told her that “he and the British government were committed to stopping such events”, according to a report in Israel National News.
Two years later, Britain’s then home secretary Priti Patel met privately with Martin Fausset, the CEO of Elbit Systems UK, to “discuss protests and security”.
Home Office documents revealed that the purpose of the meeting was to “reassure… Fausset that the criminal protest acts against Elbit Systems UK are taken seriously by Government”.
In the meeting, Patel was told how Palestine Action’s protests against Elbit “were getting more and more severe”, and the activists were “well organised, funded and trained”.
She became “deeply concerned about everything she heard”, and produced a number of suggested actions. That list remains redacted in its entirety.
‘Significant damage’ to Elbit?
At the time of Patel’s meeting with Fausset, the British authorities had not managed to secure any convictions against Palestine Action.
But one month after the meeting, Britain’s then attorney general Suella Braverman referred a case of four activists cleared of toppling slave trader Edward Colston’s statue to the court of appeal.
This rare move was criticised at the time by defence attorney Raj Chada, who said it was “extremely disappointing and should give everyone who cares about the integrity of our legal system cause for concern”.
Counter-terror legislation
In April 2023, Philp attended a meeting with representatives from Elbit, Thales, the National Police Coordination Centre, and the Home Office.
Kelby Halmes, director and deputy of the Attorney General’s Office, was also there “to represent” the Crown Prosecution Service and therefore, paradoxically, “preserve its operational independence”.
The goal of this meeting was to “reassure Elbit Systems UK and the wider sector affected by Palestine Action that the Government cares about the harm the group are causing the private sector”, according to internal documents seen by Declassified.
It was also in this period that British officials began to discuss whether Palestine Action might be proscribed under counter-terrorism legislation.
“Palestine Action does not meet the threshold for proscription as they do not commit, participate in, prepare for, promote, encourage, or otherwise be concerned with acts of terrorism”, one internal file noted.
But since then, the police have started detaining Palestine Action activists under the Terrorism Act, an escalation which prompted a response from UN human rights expert Ben Saul last month.
Saul wrote to the Home Office: “Treating direct action, – albeit involving some violence – as ‘terrorism’ over-states the nature of the conduct and seriously risks chilling the exercise of freedom of expression”.
Palestine Action’s Huda Ammori added: “Eighteen Palestine Action prisoners are detained under counter-terrorism powers in an unprecedented crackdown against anti-genocide activists.
“There must be full transparency of meetings with the government which reference Palestine Action, and an independent investigation into the validity of prosecutions against us, given the evidence of judicial interference”.
The Home Office declined to comment.
The ruling that followed stipulated that “conviction for causing significant damage to property during protest” would fall outside the protections of the European Convention of Human Rights.
This provided the British authorities with a wider remit to prosecute Palestine Action activists, and the convictions duly followed.
Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori told Declassified: “There is clear evidence of collusion between government, prosecutors, police, the Israeli government and Elbit Systems in a bid to crackdown on Palestine Action’s relentless direct action campaign.
“Such collusion likely amounts to political and foreign interference in our judicial system, a potential abuse of process in prosecutions against Palestine Action”.
