Pro-Palestine heckler at Labour conference ‘still in shock’ at force used against him
Man, 24, interrupted chancellor Rachel Reeves’s speech to challenge her on Britain’s sale of arms to Israel before being dragged outside
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A pro-Palestine protester who was filmed being dragged out of the Labour party conference after interrupting the chancellor’s speech on Monday has said he is “still in shock” at the level of force used against him.
The man, 24, who requested anonymity for fear of repercussions at work, stood up as Rachel Reeves was speaking at the ACC Arena in Liverpool on the conference’s theme of “change begins”. He was captured on video challenging the government’s position on Israel’s war on Gaza, urging her: “We are still selling arms to Israel. I thought we were supposed to be changed, Rachel.”
Within moments, a man put his arm around the protester’s neck and dragged him through the crowd. Security personnel were then seen removing him from the venue. Responding to the disruption, Reeves told the crowd: “This is a changed Labour party. A party that represents working people, not a party of protest.”
The man is part of the climate justice group Climate Resistance. Another member of the group was also in the crowd holding up a banner that read: “Still arming Israel, still backing polluters.” They were also removed by security.
“As we were being escorted out, I shouted ‘free Palestine’,” the man told Hyphen on Monday evening. “The guy who was holding me tightened his grip and called me a weasel.”
Outside the conference, the protester was arrested on suspicion of breaching the peace and detained in handcuffs in a police van for an hour. He claims that, at one point, a police officer kicked the back of his leg to stop him digging his heels into the ground. Hyphen has approached Merseyside police for comment.
“There was a lot of excessive force,” he claimed. “I was telling them I was in pain because of the handcuffs, but they dismissed it and said it was because I was tense, which wasn’t the case.”
Following the protest, Labour contacted the man suspending his membership “in order to protect the party from real and lasting harm”.
“The Labour party want to brand themselves as the party of change,” he added. “It’s really important to have a counter to that narrative until they are making the changes we want to see, specifically in regard to the issue of Palestine and Labour’s climate commitments.”
Earlier this month, the government announced it had suspended “around 30” out of 350 arms export licences to Israel for use in Gaza over concerns about breaches of international law. Since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, an estimated 41,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 95,000 injured, but actual figures are likely to be significantly higher as it does not include those missing and presumed buried.
Responding to Reeves’s comments that Labour is “not a party of protest”, the man said: “Labour have always been on the side of trade unions and workers’ movements. Historically, it was a party of protest.”
He continued: “Many of the rights we have today have been won through protest.”
The protester, who has been released without charge, said he had disrupted other government events and conferences in the past, and that he was considering taking further action against the police for the force they used during the arrest.
“The thing that shocked me was the total denial,” he said. “When we were brought out into the courtyard, the police were completely reframing the reality of what had just happened.
“Normally when you go to these things, the security will come over and say that you are breaking the rules of the conference, and that you have to leave. They do that before they start grabbing you. There was none of that here.”
Former Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard condemned the level of force used against the man, writing on X: “Grabbing this protester by the throat was an unnecessary and disproportionate use of force.
“When Walter Wolfgang was manhandled out of the conference hall in 2005, the Labour Party apologised to him. We should do the same now.” Wolfgang was an anti-war protester who heckled then foreign secretary Jack Straw during a Labour conference speech on Iraq.
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