THE far right is a bigger threat than at any time since the 1930s — and organised labour is key to defeating it, a packed Stand Up to Racism fringe meeting heard at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool today. “The far right are on the march and a serious threat at the ballot box. We need to challenge them, and for trade unions, that…
Page A2From§Eachthe late evening edition — 27 September 2026
Labour conference arrests hundreds for backing banned group, hears fascism must be organized against, same day.
As it ran on the front
Nearly 4,000 people have been arrested in Britain for supporting a group the government proscribed as a terrorist organization in July 2025. The group is called Palestine Action. Its members have not been accused of anything resembling the atrocities the label usually points to; the receipts describe paint thrown and windows broken at arms factories. Under the Terrorism Act, holding a sign that says you support the group is treated as the same category of offense as belonging to it. That is the law as written, fourteen months in.
On Sunday, that law met Andy Burnham's first Labour Party conference as prime minister, in Liverpool. Almost 200 people gathered outside the venue holding signs that read "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action." Two hours into the demonstration, Merseyside police moved in. Among those taken into custody was a 94-year-old human rights lawyer, who has now watched an arrest count climb toward 4,000 for a ban that has not narrowed since the day it was signed.…
…(cont) The room heard that the far right is a bigger threat than at any point since the 1930s, and that organised labour is the one force positioned to stop it. Fran Heathcote, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, told the meeting that unions carry the responsibility to expose Reform's agenda and the damage it would do to working-class communities.
So on the same afternoon, inside the same conference: a union leader stood up and said organizing against fascism is the job in front of them. Outside, officers arrested a 94-year-old lawyer for standing with a sign. Both things happened under the authority of the same government, at the same event, within the same two hundred yards.
A caseload nearing 4,000 does not shrink on its own. It grows until someone with the power to narrow the proscription decides to use it, and nothing in this conference's schedule shows that decision being made. The ban still catches a sign the same way it catches a broken window.
Labour did not write the July 2025 order that put nearly 4,000 people into a police caseload. It inherited it, and on Sunday its own government enforced it, arrest by arrest, while its own party conference hosted the argument that organizing is the last defense against the far right. Both of those things happened on the same day, in the same city. Neither one is a metaphor.
“They call it counterterrorism, but a caseload closing in on 4,000 is built out of people holding cardboard signs, including a 94-year-old lawyer arrested outside Burnham's own conference. Two hundred yards inside that same hall, a union leader tells the room organizing is the only thing that stops the far right — the government is out front arresting the answer to the question it just let someone ask indoors.”
“Look, proscription is proscription — Palestine Action was designated under the Terrorism Act, that's a law, that's Parliament, not some rogue decision. And the arrests, that's just enforcement, the police aren't out there picking on a 94-year-old, they're — okay, they are literally arresting a 94-year-old, but that's the officers doing their job, I don't write the statute. Did I just defend arresting a pensioner for a sign? That doesn't sound like me.”
The receipts
JUSTICE campaigners will host a mass, silent vigil on the opening day of the Labour Party conference tomorrow in Liverpool in protest at the proscription of Palestine Action. Defend Our Juries (DoJ) is organising the protest at 1pm near the conference venue to coincide with the opening day of Andy Burnham’s first Labour Party conference…
Hundreds of people will hold signs reading ‘I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action’ outside the first Labour party conference since Andy Burnham came to power, campaigners have said. The action – planned by Defend Our Juries (DOJ) for the opening day of the Liverpool conference on 27 September – is expected to result in […]
Almost 200 people gathered outside Andy Burnham’s first Labour party conference as prime minister to defy the ban on Palestine Action by holding signs that read “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”. Two hours into the demonstration on Sunday 27 September – the opening day of the conference in Liverpool – Merseyside police had…
Nearly 4,000 people have now been arrested for peacefully supporting Palestine Action since it was designated a terror group in July 2025
· US Declares Palestine Action a ‘Terrorist Organisation’ from the morgue, 27 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.