A Post Referencing Palestine Action Didn't Meet the Criminal Threshold, Police Say
Police say no further action will be taken against the wife of the government's national security adviser after she posted on social media referencing Palestine Action. The Metropolitan Police said the post was assessed by specialist officers and it was determined that it did not meet the criminal threshold.
That's a narrow sentence carrying a lot of weight. The force reached a conclusion about whether the words crossed a legal line, and a conclusion of that kind says nothing about whether the post was wise, foolish, or something people will spend the week arguing about.
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Two questions get tangled up here: is a post criminal, and is it defensible? The Met answered the first. That answer wasn't supposed to settle the second.
The assessment is the more memorable fact, though. A post from the national security adviser's household went to specialist officers, who concluded the law had nothing to say about it — the process is the event.
Which is the argument for a threshold test existing: it's what keeps every objectionable sentence from becoming a potential file. "No further action" is a dull sentence to publish, and it's meant to be.