Hundreds rally near Downing Street as delegation delivers letter to UK government calling for sanctions on Israel.

Leading Jewish figures in Britain have signed a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper denouncing the government’s decision to proscribe the activist group Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation.

The delivery of the letter on Tuesday coincides with a protest organised under the slogan Proscribe Genocide, Not Protest. The rally outside Downing Street is expected to draw hundreds of participants, including figures from Britain’s Jewish community.

The letter, signed by about 300 Jewish British citizens, condemns the ban as “illegitimate and unethical” and calls for urgent government action against Israel over its conduct of the war in the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip and over escalating violence engulfing the occupied West Bank.

Among the signatories are human rights lawyer Geoffrey Bindman, filmmaker Mike Leigh, author Michael Rosen and writer Gillian Slovo. Jenny Manson, chairperson of Jewish Voice for Labour and one of the lead organisers, said the group was acting both as human beings and as Jews with a moral obligation to oppose genocide.