Terrorism arrests rose 1,114% last year - so why aren't the security services more alarmed? | Zoe Williams

"There were 255 terrorism-related arrests in 2025, which is only a 2% increase on the previous year's figure of 250. Funny thing is, I know three people who were arrested on terrorism-related charges last year... if those numbers are solid, that means more than 50% of the mini-surge came from more or less the same group of people, two of them from the same postcode."

"Looking closer, it turns out the latest figures are not very solid, because the number of terrorism arrests in 2025 was in fact 3,034, a 1,114% increase on 2024. This striking uptick would be enough to alarm and dismay a country's security services, except for the fact that almost all of them were related to protests on behalf of Palestine Action."

"2,779 more people were arrested as terrorists. On the march on my birthday, half of them were over 60 and more people were arrested who were over 80 than under 20. Whichever way you cut it, terrorism arrests are an ordeal—even if they do magically vanish after a judicial review."

Home Office terrorism arrest data for 2025 reveals a significant discrepancy between reported figures of 255 arrests and actual arrests of 3,034, representing a 1,114% increase from 2024. The vast majority of these arrests relate to Palestine Action protests and proscription offences, which have been excluded from official statistics due to an ongoing judicial review and appeal. Counter Terrorism Policing justified this exclusion by noting that if Palestine Action is determined not to be a terrorist organization, counting its supporters as terrorists would be inappropriate. However, this exclusion masks the reality that nearly 2,779 additional people were arrested on terrorism charges, many of them elderly protesters over 60, with more arrests of people over 80 than under 20. The situation highlights tensions between statistical accuracy and legal proceedings.

Read at www.theguardian.com