Mass arrests outside Labour Party Conference. Is anyone listening?
JVL Introduction
Dozens of Defend our Juries protesters outside Labour Party conference in Liverpool held overstretched police to a stand-off from 1pm on Sunday September 27 until 5am on Monday, confronting Andy Burnham’s government with the unsustainable absurdity of its ban on the direct action group Palestine Action.
As Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband used his speech to conference on Monday morning to assert that the government was listening to millions of people “moved and outraged by the plight of the Palestinian people”, those very same people were asking when his colleague Home Secretary Shabana Mahmoud would see sense and reverse the ban.
A press release from Defend our Juries said those arrested included human rights barrister, Margaret Owen OBE “who at 94 years old is believed to be Britain’s oldest ‘terrorist’.”
Margaret, who was one of a number of Jewish people taking part in the protest, is quoted in the Novara Media report we publish below saying: “I’m horrified, disgusted, angry that my government is supporting Israel.”
DoJ’s press release reprimanded Ed Miliband for hypocrisy, saying in advance of his conference speech: “Inside the Labour Party Conference today, Ed Miliband will tell campaigners and party members that they were right to build political pressure over Gaza with their protests. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. If he means what he says, why are those taking a principled stand against genocide still being arrested as terrorists? Why is Elbit Systems, the largest supplier of genocidal weaponry still able to operate from the UK with impunity?”
For those who have access to Instagram, just.barold has posted many photos of the protest.
See also this from Middle East Eye.
This article was originally published by Novara Media on Sun 27 Sep 2026. Read the original here.
Hundreds Defy Palestine Action Ban at Burnham’s First Labour Conference
Merseyside police arrest pensioners
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160 out of 180 arrested! Many in their 70s and 80s. They arrest 94 year olds as well ! Margaret is fantastic but this is beyond-any-words-I have-shameful. I can envision Burnham’s great grandchildren scarcely crediting this when reading what they did, in history books in 50 years time. The hypocrisy even of Miliband, saying in his speech that labour values are returning when outside the elderly are standing up againstt mass killings in Gaza- and some of those deaths with weapons made here. The first thing Burnham should have done was to sack Yvette Cooper. He must now revoke PA’s proscription in Parliament. Then he would actually get the ‘progressives’ that Rayner and Powell know will be the way Reform can be defeated and he can get his mandate for real things that must be changed such as Social Care, so close to his heart. Apparently, according to one journalist source who know his history, he likes to be liked too much.
Well done to everyone who protested, you are the change we need to see.
The government want it both ways. They want to appease the pro-Palestinian movement with their West Bank measures because they know that the country is increasingly aware of and opposed to what Israel is all about. But they are doing damn-all for Gaza. They want to continue to sell arms to Israel because in the spirit of true socialism they want to keep the arms trade profitable and they want to somehow keep a political foothold in the Middle East. Burnham and Milliband are trying very hard not to practise what they preach. The demonstrators are paying the price; as indeed are the whole Palestinian people, on a vastly different scale. Ed Milliband is a Jew: he needs to make up his mind as to what that means for him.
I am the 94 year old Jewish human rights lawyer arrested under our anti-terror law on Sunday for bearing the placard “
Stop the genocide in Gaza. I support Palestine Action. Defend our Juries” I am proud to be now among the 5,000
arrestees , branded as terrorists for condemning our government for its complicity in this horrific genocide.