More than 50 held at Labour conference protest over Palestine Action ban

More than 50 people were arrested by Merseyside Police on Saturday after demonstrating outside the Labour Party's annual conference in Liverpool in support of the proscribed organisation Palestine Action. The arrests were made under suspicion of wearing or carrying an article supporting a proscribed organisation, officers said, and some protesters were detained under the Terrorism Act.

The demonstration, organised by the group Defend Our Juries, saw more than 250 protesters take part. They sat outside the conference centre for much of the event, many of them holding home-made banners declaring "I support Palestine Action" — a deliberate assertion, in the words of one organiser, that simply expressing solidarity with a banned group is now treated as a criminal act.

Dozens of officers were deployed around the venue throughout the day. According to the account given by the police force, officers first warned protesters that they were illegally displaying signs in support of a proscribed organisation, and asked them whether they intended to continue. Only after that warning did officers begin physically detaining individuals and leading them away, telling those taken that they were being arrested under terrorism legislation.

A Merseyside Police spokesperson said the force respected everyone's right to protest lawfully, while also seeking to keep the peace and ensure public safety. The spokesperson added that the force carried out "detailed and co-ordinated plans ahead of such events to ensure it can apply this consistently, fairly and proportionately", and stressed that not everyone present at the demonstration had been committing a criminal offence.

Among those taken was Margaret Owen, a 94-year-old human rights barrister. Her detention drew particular attention and was cited by campaigners as evidence of how widely the ban is being applied. Demonstrators in Liverpool reacted with cheers each time a person was carried away by officers, treating each removal as a badge of honour rather than a defeat.

The organiser Defend Our Juries said the arrests underlined the burden the proscription places on policing. A spokesperson said: "We had hoped the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, would do the sensible thing and bin the ban on Palestine Action given the weight of public pressure to do so and the escalating amount of resources required in enforcing it. Continuing the charade of the proscription of Palestine Action is illogical, unsustainable and immoral."

Amnesty International also condemned the arrests. Kerry Moscogiuri, chief executive of Amnesty International UK, said: "Protesting is one of the most effective tools we have to make our leaders listen to us, but we have seen consecutive governments crack down on our right to do it. The arrests of grandparents, teenagers and everyone in between for holding placards outside the Labour Party conference are a truly shameful attack on freedom of speech." Moscogiuri said the new prime minister has the power to reform the laws so that communities can come together and demonstrate on the issues they care about, and asked whether he will do so.

The arrests come as the legal status of the ban continues to move through the courts. The proscription, which came into force in July 2025, is being reviewed by the Supreme Court, which has given the group's co-founder permission to appeal. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said shortly afterwards that the government would "robustly defend this appeal".

Ministers have repeatedly insisted the ban is not aimed at protest in support of Palestinian causes. The Home Office has said the proscription was necessary because the group was causing significant criminal damage to legitimate businesses. The legal challenge has tested that position at every stage: both the High Court and the Court of Appeal have ruled that Palestine Action's activities include criminal acts, though the judges were divided on whether those incidents were serious enough to justify using terrorism legislation.

The Liverpool protest therefore lands at a particularly sensitive moment, with the organisation banned, a Supreme Court appeal pending and a conference in which Labour members were gathering alongside prominent supporters of the Palestinian cause. BBC News has asked the Ministry of Justice to comment on the arrests, and the Home Office position that the ban targets criminality rather than peaceful expression is likely to face renewed scrutiny at Westminster and in the courts.

The wider significance of the Liverpool action extends beyond the conference itself. Campaigners argue that repeated enforcement of the ban requires ever more police time and invites the question of whether proscription — designed to prevent violent or criminal conduct — has become, in practice, a restriction on what people may say in public. Police, for their part, insist they are applying the law as it stands, consistently and proportionately, and they maintain that not everyone at the protest was offending. With more than 50 people detained and a Supreme Court appeal unresolved, the tension between those two positions shows no sign of easing.