Palestine Action: Police arrest protesters throughout the night outside Labour conference

Carolyn Gelenter was preparing for her fifth arrest for a terrorist offence.

The 57-year-old daughter of a Holocaust survivor had come outside the Labour Party conference in Liverpool to hold up a placard expressing opposition to genocide and support for the direct action group Palestine Action. 

“I feel like this is a great opportunity to reach out to Andy Burnham, who wants to disassociate himself from Keir Starmer’s premiership," Gelenter said.

“There are many of us who are really angry about what’s going on and now’s an opportunity as a new leader of the Labour Party.”

Nearby, a man named Richard prepared to hold up his own placard. He had been arrested several times before for the same offence.

“It’s a bit of a chore,” he said. But it was important to stand up for civil liberties, he added. 

Sunday marked the first full day of the Labour conference.

Inside the conference venue, Liverpool’s Exhibition Centre, ministers and MPs were holding panels and giving speeches. Well-dressed men and women filed into the conference clutching copies of the agenda. 

Policemen were lined up on the grass outside, however, preparing to deal with more than 250 protesters writing, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action” on pieces of cardboard.  

The demonstration was organised by the group Defend Our Juries.

Most of the protesters were elderly. Many were pensioners and veterans of these protests, who had been repeatedly arrested to register their anger with the government and try and have the Palestine Action ban overturned. 

“The police are also ambivalent and probably more than ambivalent,” Gelenter speculated. “I think they think it’s a waste of their time as well, but they are doing it because they are following orders.”

Gelenter wore a sign on her front reading: “This daughter of a Holocaust survivor says: No to Israel’s genocidal wars!” 

“There are many Jewish communities,” she said, “and I think it's really important that non-Jewish people know it's OK to speak out about Israel, because you're speaking out against a political ideology of Zionism, which is not Judaism.”

Joe, 25, was sitting on the grass with his placard. “I am prepared to be arrested today,” he said.

“Ultimately, our government's complicit in genocide and it’s up to ordinary people to take a stand. Palestine Action needs to be de-proscribed. It’s not a terrorist organisation, everyone knows that."

“The fact that there are pensioners here today being arrested, for being supposed terrorists, everyone can see how ridiculous that is,” he says. 

The ban has been widely denounced as draconian by human rights organisations. Thousands of people have been arrested since the ban came into effect for acts of civil disobedience. 

Since Burnham became prime minister, he has publicly ignored the issue. But protesters hope that his arrival could lead to the ban being overturned, if they keep the pressure up.

This is especially so since Burnham’s government has sanctioned illegal Israeli settlements, indicating a serious willingness to depart from Starmer’s approach.

Joe added: “I'm aware of the consequences; it's not how I wanna be spending my Sunday afternoon, but ultimately you look back through history and the way the civil liberties have been won, the way that genocides have been stopped, the way that apartheid has been ended, it's through ordinary people taking a stand.” 

The protesters were milling about on the grass. The atmosphere was jovial and groups of friends preparing to be arrested took photographs together, including members of the “Jewish bloc” of protesters.

Then the time came to commit the offence.

At about 1pm on Sunday everyone sat down to write on their placards and hold them up. Some wrote the offending slogan in foreign languages, including Welsh and Arabic.

Now the field was quiet and a mood of solemnity overtook the crowd.

Keir Starmer’s government proscribed Palestine Action in July 2025, meaning that expressing support for or membership of the direct action group - which aimed to cause property damage to companies manufacturing weapons that would be sold to Israel - is a criminal offence that could lead to a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Men and women holding their placards looked at the ground. Few were talking to each other. Some had their eyes closed, perhaps to contemplate the enormity of what they were doing.

Then the arrests began. They were rather slow; local police had clearly limited experience of these protests.

Whereas in London, during protests about Palestine Action, the police tend to carry out arrests in quick succession, allowing them to get through hundreds, here they took five minutes per arrest. 

Some protesters stood up with their placards and were escorted off by officers. Others refused to stand and had to be carried away by the police, pursued by journalists and photographers. The police were impassive and professional.

Near sunset, numerous protesters started to leave with their placards. Lines of officers tried weakly to stop them from going but many made it off the field and casually walked away.

One officer grabbed an elderly man by the arm and escorted him back onto the grass.

Margaret Owen, a 94-year-old Jewish human rights barrister, was arrested. She held her fist high in defiance and an officer took her away.

As each person was arrested, an enormous cheer went up from the crowd. “Thank you!” supporters on the sidelines shouted.

It went on for hours. Protesters were still being arrested in the dark at midnight. By this point, more than 50 arrests had been made. Protesters had been held in a police kettle for 13 hours.

Eventually the police left at 5am, after a 16-hour standoff.

According to Defend Our Juries, around 150 arrests were made.

A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries 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."