Terror cops probe RAF security bungle after pro-Palestine fanatics break into Britain's biggest air base
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TERROR cops were last night probing a security shambles after pro-Palestine fanatics on scooters broke into Britain's biggest air base.
The thugs hurled red paint into two planes' engines after cutting fencing at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire.
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Red paint can be seen on and around the Airbus Voyager at RAF Brize Norton
Credit: ITV News
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A Palestine Action fanatic rides towards the plane on an electric scooter after evading security at the base
Credit: x
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The vandals' paint kit hangs from the scooter's handlebars
Credit: x
PM Keir Starmer called the attack 'disgraceful'.
The group, Palestine Action will be outlawed as a terrorist organisation after the brazen paint stunt at Britain's biggest air base.
The Government was last night under huge pressure following the security shambles at the high-security base.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper responded by saying she will put forward legislation on Monday to make being a member of the group illegal.
READ MORE RAF NEWS
PLANE MAD Palestine activists attack plane on RAF base in 'grotesque security breach'
Two fanatics on electric scooters were thought to have cut a section of the base's eight-mile perimeter fence in rural Oxfordshire, early yesterday.
Palestine Action posted a 34-second video of the pair riding up to two Airbus Voyagers in the dark.
They then used converted fire extinguishers to spray paint on to the turbines and fuselages of the planes in a bid to ruin the engines.
The fanatics fled and were being hunted by counter-terror cops.
PM Sir Keir Starmer condemned the action as 'disgraceful' and 'an act of vandalism'.
The group also targeted commercial sites in Manchester and Chelmsford, Essex, yesterday which they claimed had links to Israel.
Security alert as man seen climbing up Big Ben sparking huge emergency response
Checks were under way on the aircraft, which cost £750million over their lifetime. Sources said damage to the engines could run into 'seven figures'.
The RAF does not expect the incident to affect wider operations.
Brize Norton — home to 6,000 military staff, 300 civilian workers and 1,200 contractors — is the hub for UK strategic air transport and refuelling, including flights to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
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Paint can be seen daubed on the engine and fuselage at dawn
Credit: Sky News
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The group claims to have sprayed paint into the engine - and putting the jet out of action
Credit: Sky News
Palestine Action said: 'By decommissioning two military planes, Palestine Action have directly intervened in the genocide and prevented crimes against Palestinians.'
But a defence source said the group was 'confused and misguided' in its mission.
The source said: 'These planes were for air transport and air-to-air refuelling. Trying to link the Voyager fleet to Gaza is ridiculous.'
An MoD spokesman confirmed that Voyager aircraft had not been involved in refuelling or supporting Israeli Air Force jets.
They have been used to refuel RAF Typhoons fighting IS in Iraq and Syria, and against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Retired Col Richard Kemp said: 'Brize was attacked not by external forces but the enemy within. It was a deliberate act of sabotage.'
Lord West, the former head of the Royal Navy, described the breach as 'shocking'.
He added: 'Bearing in mind the very real risks of attacks from terrorists and Russian proxy state actors, it's unbelievable that such lax protection should be afforded to vital equipment and, in the final analysis, our people.'
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called it 'deeply concerning'.
She said: 'This is not lawful protest, it's politically-motivated criminality.'
A defence source said it was impossible to patrol the base '24/7, 365'.
They said: 'We do have fences, cameras and barbed wire but to patrol with dogs all the time costs a huge amount of manpower and some of it comes back on spending to the Armed Forces.'
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Terror cops are probing the security shambles that allowed pro-Palestine fanatics on scooters to break into Britain's biggest air base
Credit: NC
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PM Keir Starmer called the attack 'disgraceful'
Credit: EPA
After the stunt, Defence Secretary John Healey said he had ordered an investigation and a review of wider security at our bases. Counter-terror police were investigating along with Thames Valley Police and the MoD.
Palestine Action has previously focused attention on Israeli defence contractor Elbit Systems Ltd.
In March the group claimed to have shut down its Bristol HQ using a cherry picker. Four people were charged over damage caused.
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Spectator
2 hours ago
- Spectator
Let's call Palestine Action's RAF attack what it is: sabotage
It might be a little unfair to pick on Lisa Nandy – who was bounced on Radio 4's Today programme yesterday morning and who, to be fair, did condemn unequivocally the actions of the Palestine Action cadres who attacked two of the 14 Voyager aircraft that form the Royal Air Force's strategic tanker force. But her extemporised response betrayed annoyance at 'choices' over a protest before, correctly, reminding the audience that this was about national security. And it certainly is. These aircraft are vital to our national defence. They refuel the air-defence fighters that patrol the thousands of square miles of the airspace over the North Atlantic that is our Nato responsibility, intercepting nuclear-capable Russian bombers on a regular basis. They allow us to deploy aircraft quickly at range – such as to reinforce Cyprus only this week. The defence of the Falklands hinges on it. 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In the last couple of years we have seen defence companies attacked by Palestine Action, resulting in millions of pounds worth of damage and operational delays. The perpetrators of those incidents, by and large, were given light sentences and even acquitted on grounds of doing a 'greater good'. What message did that send? The media continued to refer to the perpetrators as 'protesters', not saboteurs, and they were treated sympathetically. This sets societal norms, and so such 'protests' can become quasi-legitimised as acts of principled opposition. Worthy of a slapped wrist, perhaps, but… As Sir Stephen Watson succinctly explained at Policy Exchange recently, there has only been one Just Stop Oil protest in Manchester, and it lasted just 45 seconds before they were arrested for blocking the King's highway. Set boundaries and you get less bad behaviour, get less bad behaviour and you can control what remains. And so it must be with Palestine Action. 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