The PR company CMS Strategic that reportedly planted a false story in the Times about Palestine Action has a series of intimate connections to the shadowy pro-Israel lobby group We Believe in Israel (WBII). This is of course the same WBII that boasted its role in machinating the proscription of the group.
What’s more, vis-a-vis these WBII ties, the firm appears to have a wealth of links to the Labour Party and key figures in government.
Palestine Action Iran funding smear: PR firm exposed
As the Canary’s Alex/Rose Cocker detailed, the article in question had claimed – completely without basis – that the Home Office was investigating Palestine Action receiving funding from Iran.
However, repeated Home Office denials over the allegations had suggested for a while that something else was afoot.
Private Eye had previously approached the Home Office over the Times article. However, according to the magazine, this was only for it to come back and say that it did not recognise the claim.
The Canary had also submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Home Office. But once again, the Home Office confirmed that it had not supplied any information directly to the Times for the story.
At the time, there was a mainstream media frenzy from the usual suspects. GB News, the Daily Mail, the BBC, the Telegraph, and the Spectator all ran a series of stories trumpeting the potential Iran link. Declassified UK traced them all back to the dubious claims in the Times article.
Now, Private Eye has revealed how:
CMS Strategic has acted as Elbit’s UK PR firm for some years. A witness known by the Eye heard Georgia Pickering, CMS’s managing director and owner, claiming credit for getting a story into newspapers about Palestine Action, the “direct action” group that damaged Elbit factories and other premises the group says are linked to the war in Gaza.
Source of the Times claims – long unclear
Since the Times published the article, multiple outlets have speculated over the source of the claims.
The Guardian had highlighted how We Believe in Israel had tweeted just two days before the Times article calling Palestine Action a “shell front” and stating:
Behind Palestine Action’s theatre of resistance stands a darker puppeteer: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
It’s well documented that the Zionist lobby group was chief among those lobbying for Palestine Action’s proscription. In June, just weeks ahead of Palestine Action’s ban, it published a report titled Palestine Action: A Case for Proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000. And notably, the Guardian pointed out how home secretary Yvette Cooper’s statement on the decision to proscribe Palestine Action was “similar” to the wording from this report. WBII even boasted it was thanks to its briefing that the government decided to proscribe Palestine Action.
What’s more, the Canary has identified how WBII’s current director, Catherine Perez-Shakdam, had in the year leading up to Palestine Action’s proscription, penned op-eds not only calling for the ban, but also insinuating a link to Iran. Notably, in November 2024, she wrote an article calling Palestine Action activists “Tehran’s ideological sentries” and arguing that:
To look at Palestine Action is to see not an “activist” group, but an ideological proxy for the Iranian regime, operating as Tehran’s enforcers in a country they otherwise could never reach.
The piece goes to great lengths to paint Palestine Action as “proxies of a foreign power”, describing them as:
foot soldiers whose purpose is to inject Tehran’s twisted worldview into the heart of Britain’s public discourse.
At points, the article implies Palestine Action tactics are “inspired” by the Iranian regime. In others, she goes further to almost imply they are active foreign agents, making baseless claims like:
Tehran, unable to influence Britain directly, deploys groups like Palestine Action to project its authoritarian ethos across borders.
Of course, opinion article that it is, for the Zionist Times of Israel no less, Perez-Shakdam was compelled to provide no evidence for her conspiracist diatribe.
We Believe in Israel: cropping up again, naturally
To date, the Canary has been unable to source evidence of Perez-Shakdam and the numerous organisations she heads lobbying the Home Office. However, the Home Office has obviously categorically denied any role in seeding the story anyway – at least directly.
Now, these facts take on new significance in light of Private Eye’s revelations.
This is because, if CMS Strategic really did plant the story in the Times, its worth emphasising some particular links to WBII – and their timing.
To start with, there’s the company’s senior account executive Kira Lewis. Lewis joined CMS Strategic in March 2025 from the infamous Israel lobby group British Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM).
Of course, this was just months before the Labour government announced the proscription of Palestine Action. As the Canary’s Ed Sykes previously highlighted, We Believe in Israel is:
“a side-project” of BICOM – “Britain’s most active pro-Israeli lobbying organisation”. And its longstanding director was awful Labour right-winger and self-proclaimed “Zionist shitlord” Luke Akehurst (who isn’t Jewish, by the way).
And Lewis evidently has clear connections to the group, not least through her role with BICOM.
In July 2022, they penned an op-ed for Jewish News about their trip to Israel with:
the Labour Friends of Israel and the We Believe In Israel campaign group.
Then, in June 2024, they were out on the campaign trail for Akehurst. Akehurst only stepped down from his near 13-year stint as We Believe in Israel director that very same June.
What’s more, it appears CMS Strategic has made use of Lewis’s links with the parachute North Durham MP. In May, Labour First (where incidentally, Lewis also previously worked), hosted an event with chancellor Rachel Reeves.
In a LinkedIn post, Pickering posted chummy photos with the chancellor and thanked Akehurst for arranging for the company to support the event.
Labour links in abundance
What’s also apparent is that CMS Strategic has tangible inroads with this current Labour government as well.
Pickering is a Bracknell Labour Party councillor. Alongside this, she is also co-chair of Labour in Communications’ (LIC) defence and aerospace policy network group. The organisation describes its remit as:
Labour’s fastest-growing professional network of supporters working in the communications, media and public affairs industry.
In a LinkedIn post, Pickering put out a call to recruit new Labour Party members from the PR and defence sectors to the group. A group gathering together Labour members with defence lobbyist experience – nothing to see there of course.
Lewis, a Young Labour member, is also a Labour Party councillor, for Higham Hill. In 2023, they resigned their role as junior whip on the Waltham Forest council after posting a tweet stating that:
What Israel is doing is bad – killing thousands of innocent people, including children. But not evil. Hamas is evil.
Additionally, Lewis’s LinkedIn details a number of short-term gigs as an organiser for the party.
However, perhaps most significantly, as mentioned above, Lewis previously worked for Labour First. Journalist and author Paul Holden has described the group in his explosive new book as the “base camp for the Labour right’s overt fightback” against Corbyn and the party’s left-wing. By this, he was referring to the organisation’s very public efforts to oust Corbyn and his allies, namely by spearheading repeated coup attempts during his leadership.
And low and behold, Akehurst had his fingers in this pie too. He co-founded Labour First alongside former LFI vice-chair and MP John Spellar and Labour councillor Keith Dibble. Naturally, Akehurst is still a director.
CMS staff were also at the Labour Party’s 2025 conference arranging “1-1 discussions” for ministers, MPs, and “industry voices”.
CMS Strategic shilling for DSEI
Moreover, CMS is no stranger to publicly gloating about helping defence companies get coverage in the corporate media either:
So despite the company denying the claims from the Eye, it would be quite on-brand for Pickering to have boasted this – and for the company to be the actor behind the scenes.
As the Eye underscored, CMS has shilled for notorious Israel-linked arms corporation Elbit Systems. Of course, Palestine Action has long made the number one Israel arms manufacturer the main target of its direct action. The magazine also highlighted that in 2024 Palestine Action targeted CMS over its lobbying for the company.
Indeed, the PR firm is one of just two companies the arms producers has employed in recent years to lobby the UK government. CMS isn’t currently listed as its lobbyist.
However, CMS itself has maintained a murky menagerie of arms manufacturers amid its clientele. It was none other than CMS running media and comms for the UK’s largest arms fair Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI). In fact, Pickering was bragging about CMS delivering this for DSEI for the 10th time:
This was the same DSEI that exhibited arms giants that have armed and sustained Israel’s genocide. It included drone and F35 manufacturers Elbit, Rafael, Lockhead Martin, and BAE.
Times peddling propaganda for CMS Strategic? What’s new
The Canary approached CMS Strategic and the Times for comment. We asked the Times whether it had verified that the Home Office were purportedly “understood” to be investigating Palestine Action’s funding and links to Iran. In addition, we queried if CMS/Georgia Pickering were the source for its article. The outlet did not respond by the time of publication.
Meanwhile, CMS Strategic came back with an identical comment to what it told the Eye:
Any suggestion that CMS was involved with The Times article dated 23 June 2025 or discussed being involved with it are categorically untrue.
Ultimately, the Times in its top-quality due diligence journalism, published what appear to be outrageously fabricated claims. Those claims may have originated from a long-term lobbyist and PR outfit for major arms companies abetting Israel’s genocide.
There’s no definitive proof – at present – that WBII had a hand in this. However, these connections to CMS Strategic do raise significant questions nonetheless. As its swagger around Palestine Action’s proscription underscores – pumping out propaganda sure wouldn’t be out of character.
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