The internal documents that Defend Our Juries and other civil liberties groups unearthed show that legal briefings to Home Office ministers, ahead of meetings with Elbit CEO Martin Fausset, came about specifically in response to jury acquittals of Palestine Action. “You have meetings between Elbit, the home secretary, the Israeli government, and the British attorney general expressing grave concern about the acquittals,” Crosland told me. Starmer sought guidance from a fossil fuel and arms industry lobbyist named John Z. Woodcock, called Lord Walney, who made a name for himself following his appointment in 2019 as the government’s “independent advisor on political violence and disruption.” Walney’s special report, issued in May of 2024, focused on two protest groups: Palestine Action and Just Stop Oil (JSO). Like Palestine Action, Just Stop Oil had organized disruptive acts of civil disobedience. Its stated goal was to end all new fossil fuel projects operated under the aegis of the UK government and UK corporations. Both Palestine Action and Just Stop Oil were hostile to the industries that had paid Lord Walney millions of dollars in lobbying fees over the years. It was no surprise, then, when Walney advised the UK to designate both groups as terrorists and issue orders of proscription against them—a ban on their existence and the declaration of their members, supporters, and advocates as terrorist criminals.