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Try section one, just above section two : it's the threat of action against the government where the powder could have been somewhat more harmful than purple flour.
1. - (1) In this Act "terrorism" means the use or threat of action where-
(a) the action falls within subsection (2),
(b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and
(c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.
The point is surely that the protesters never made the threat that the powder was anything more than purple flour. If they'd shouted "die evil Blair by our anthrax-impregnated-powder-filled condoms", then that may have constituted a terrorist threat. A possibility is not a threat.
As I read it, they would have had explicitly to have threatened the Government with an action falling under subsection (2). They made no threat of serious violence, serious damage of property, endangering a person's life, creating a risk to public health or seriously interfering with an electronic system.
Remember the terrorist legislation is a work in constant progress.
Their actions might be deemed an offence under s114 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001.
If they they had pretended to have anthrax or weedkiller or something toxic in the purple powder, then yes, s114 of the ATCSA might apply, but they obviously did not.
http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2001/10024--n.htm#114
What next - charging people with using a Biological Warfare agent when they throw a raw egg at a politician, simply because there is a small risk of it incubating a viral disease, and a not negligable chance that it might be infected with salmonella bacteria ?
The protestors have been charged under the Public Order Act, and will probably get bound over to keep the peace for a year, or at the very worst get sentenced to 6 months in jail.
It would not have been "proprtionate" to charge them under the Terrorism Act, but being charged is a vety rare occurance.
There have been thousands of people who have been detained without charged (you can now be held for up to 14 days) and then released. Only a minority of these (about 80 ?) have been charged with other offences, and there have only been a handful of charges under the Terrorism Act itself.