Campaigners claim Miliband saying Palestine Action ban not meant to criminalise ‘grannies’ will help legal challenge
Haroon Siddique
Haroon Siddique is the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent.
Ed Miliband has said it was never anyone’s intent to criminalise “elderly people, vicars and grannies” who have been arrested for supporting Palestine Action.
Since Palestine Action became the first direct action group to be banned under the Terrorism Act in July last year, more than 3,700 people are believed to have been arrested for alleged support of the proscribed organisation. They include 82 arrested at a demonstration outside the Labour party conference on Sunday.
Later on Sunday, Miliband was challenged by two activists over the arrests while he was having a meal in Pizza Express in the city centre.
In an interview on LBC radio, Andrew Marr asked him about that encounter:
double quotation markI can’t believe in your heart of hearts that you really think proscribing Palestine Action with all those elderly people and vicars and grannies and so on as a terrorist organisation was a sensible political …
Miliband interjected:
double quotation markI don’t think anyone’s intent was to have those people criminalised. But obviously the supreme court has got to look at this issue and obviously it’s something we keep looking at as government.
On 4 and 5 November, the supreme court is due to hear a legal challenge to the ban on Palestine Action, arguing that it represents a disproportionate interference with the right to freedom of speech and freedom of protest.
A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, which organised the civil disobedience campaign against the ban, said:
double quotation markWe welcome the foreign secretary’s honesty on this matter. He has finally admitted that it wasn’t the government’s intention to criminalise people for peacefully protesting against the genocide and the proscription, let alone to treat them as terrorists.
Basically he’s acknowledged that the government didn’t properly think the proscription through and that it’s had a disproportionate impact on the right to free speech. You’d think that leaves the government in an impossible position for defending the proscription before the supreme court.
We gladly accept the offer Ed Miliband made in Pizza Express to have a conversation with us.
Ed Miliband making his speech to the conference yesterday. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianShare
Updated at 04.44 EDT
Key events
Bryant confirms he’s ‘ever so slighty homosexual’, in jibe at report calling him ‘colourful’
In his speech, Chris Bryant also joked about some of the coverage of his appointment as Northern Ireland secretary. He said one article had been headlined: “Will colourful Sir Chris Bryant shake up Stormont?”
Bryant went on:
double quotation markI don’t know what they meant by colourful. Oh you can work it out can you? Just for the avoidance of doubt, I am ever so slightly homosexual.
Bryant seemed to be referring to this article in the Belfast Telegraph.
Northern Ireland has not always been one of the most enlightened parts of the UK when it comes to gay rights. The late Ian Paisley, the DUP leader who ended up first minister, once led a campaign to Save Ulster from Sodomy.
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Bryant accuses Tories and Reform UK of putting Good Friday agreement at risk with ECHR withdrawal policies
In his speech Chris Bryant included a long passage thanking people who contributed to keeping the peace in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, including the leaders from all parties who worked to end the violence. This sort of leadership was needed in every generation, he said.
He went on:
double quotation markIt’s why I have this warning for Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch. They say they’ll bin the European convention on human rights. They’ve clearly never read the Good Friday agreement. Or maybe they don’t even care about it.
Conference, I promise you this. We will not dump the European convention on human rights. We will stand by it.
The Good Friday agreement is based on the assumption that the UK remains party to the ECHR. Reform UK and the Tories would not be able to go ahead with their plans to leave it without some sort of GFA renegotiation – which potentially might be very problematic.
Chris Byrant addressing the Labour conference. Photograph: Temilade Adelaja/ReutersShare
Chris Byrant urges both sides in Drumcree dispute to ‘double down on compromise’
Chris Bryant, the Northern Ireland secretary, has addressed the Labour conference. He started by saying:
double quotation markI had wanted to stand up here and boast about the news that Northern Ireland has the fastest economic growth of anywhere in the UK, and the lowest unemployment.
I wanted to shout out that Northern Ireland is being transformed. A thousand new jobs at Bank of America, we’re building drones for Ukraine, wings for Airbus and 30% of the world’s commercial aircraft seats.
We excel at cyber, AI, life sciences, music and film and high-end television.
We produce a fifth of the UK’s eggs and a 10th of all our food, and we’re open to business like nowhere else on earth, with unique dual access to two enormous markets, the UK and the European Union.
Our potential is enormous. We just need to harness it.
But instead he had to talk about the crisis at Drumcree, he said.
He said that the government would “always go the extra mile for peace” and that he would be in Northern Ireland this afternoon doing that. He urged both sides in the dispute to “double down on compromise”.
Chris Bryant speaking during the Labour conference. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PAShareDelegates at the Labour conference this morning. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPAShare
Rayner says Burnham right to start ‘conversation’ about funding care reform with triple lock savings
Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, has apparently confirmed that Andy Burnham will float the prospect of getting rid of the pensions triple lock to help fund the creation of an NHS-style care service.
Asked about the prospect on Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Rayner said that Burnham was “absolutely right to start the conversation” and that he was being “brave”.
Rayner also said she thought people would be open to being persuaded by Burnham that this proposal was a good one. She said:
double quotation markThe high principle on this is that people have paid in all their lives. They are willing, I think, to look at that.
What they don’t want is what they consider to be, quite frankly, incompetent politicians that are going to take something from us to fill a black hole.
If they can see that this is going to improve and move it into a way that delivers, so you’ve got a retail offer of ‘that’s no longer fit for purpose, but we can either do something for the younger generation because of the intergenerational disparities, or something on social care or whatever’, I think they would be willing to have a conversation.
Angela Rayner (left) recording Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast with Jess Phillips. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PAShare
Unite’s Sharon Graham says getting poorer pensioners to fund social care reform ‘morally wrong’
Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, restated her opposition to getting rid of the pensions triple lock (see 8.40am) in an interview on the Today programme this morning.
She said:
double quotation markWhen we met with Andy [Burnham] this week, it certainly wasn’t mentioned.
But I do think that it’s important that Labour make sure that working-class people know that they’re on their side, and this would be a direction of travel that would say the opposite to that.
Asked whether the lock should be reformed to fund social care, Graham said:
double quotation markWhat I understood the national care service to be was a universal benefit: everybody paid in and everybody gets out, and that is what actually the principle of that is.
Going to a group of people who are getting around £12,500 a year in order to pay for it to take away their security is wrong.
I think it’s morally wrong.
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Updated at 05.08 EDT
Campaigners claim Miliband saying Palestine Action ban not meant to criminalise ‘grannies’ will help legal challenge
Haroon Siddique
Haroon Siddique is the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent.
Ed Miliband has said it was never anyone’s intent to criminalise “elderly people, vicars and grannies” who have been arrested for supporting Palestine Action.
Since Palestine Action became the first direct action group to be banned under the Terrorism Act in July last year, more than 3,700 people are believed to have been arrested for alleged support of the proscribed organisation. They include 82 arrested at a demonstration outside the Labour party conference on Sunday.
Later on Sunday, Miliband was challenged by two activists over the arrests while he was having a meal in Pizza Express in the city centre.
In an interview on LBC radio, Andrew Marr asked him about that encounter:
double quotation markI can’t believe in your heart of hearts that you really think proscribing Palestine Action with all those elderly people and vicars and grannies and so on as a terrorist organisation was a sensible political …
Miliband interjected:
double quotation markI don’t think anyone’s intent was to have those people criminalised. But obviously the supreme court has got to look at this issue and obviously it’s something we keep looking at as government.
On 4 and 5 November, the supreme court is due to hear a legal challenge to the ban on Palestine Action, arguing that it represents a disproportionate interference with the right to freedom of speech and freedom of protest.
A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, which organised the civil disobedience campaign against the ban, said:
double quotation markWe welcome the foreign secretary’s honesty on this matter. He has finally admitted that it wasn’t the government’s intention to criminalise people for peacefully protesting against the genocide and the proscription, let alone to treat them as terrorists.
Basically he’s acknowledged that the government didn’t properly think the proscription through and that it’s had a disproportionate impact on the right to free speech. You’d think that leaves the government in an impossible position for defending the proscription before the supreme court.
We gladly accept the offer Ed Miliband made in Pizza Express to have a conversation with us.
Ed Miliband making his speech to the conference yesterday. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianShare
Updated at 04.44 EDT
Will Burnham float rejoining EU? Speculation persists – though Jonathan Reynolds warns this would cause ‘uncertainty’
The pensions triple lock may not be the only policy area where Andy Burnham triggers a “hope comes from honesty” policy row this afternoon. Recently he refused to rule out proposing rejoining the EU in Labour’s manifesto and, in a story for the Independent, David Maddox and Athena Stavrou report:
double quotation markMinisters have told The Independent that the prime minister is building the case to put rejoin in the manifesto at the next election. They have said it is now a question of “how it is expressed in the manifesto, rather than if” …
One senior minister told The Independent that “the mood has completely changed on this subject.”
They added: “There is a lot of momentum around rejoining again. The economic data is there and we are feeling more relaxed about talking about Brexit as being a failure.”
While many in the Labour party would be delighted by this proposal, it would not be universally popular. At a Politico fringe event on Sunday, Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, was very negative about the prospect. He said:
double quotation markI think we can frankly get more from what we need for our people, for our businesses here, by pragmatically looking at this through a trade lens. How can we improve that trade relationship, rather than these constitutional questions, which, frankly, you know, they cause a lot of uncertainty for business.
Reynolds was even sceptical about joining a customs union with the EU, saying:
double quotation markLook at the arrangements we’ve already got. You don’t add a lot more to it through a customs union … and you’d be having to, you know, frankly, accept a whole range of alignment on regulatory issues.
Asked if he wanted the UK to rejoin the EU in his lifetime, Reynolds said:
double quotation markWhat will Europe be in the future? I mean, there are clearly very challenging politics in Germany. It’s very clear that the French presidential election could be different. I honestly don’t know if you will evolve in one direction or the other. So I can’t really give you an answer to that.
Sharon Graham, the Unite leader, is another senior Labour figure opposed to rejoining.
Jonathan Reynolds. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PAShare
Andy Burnham has posted this on social media this morning. It is slightly condensed version of the overnight briefing given to the media. (See 8.40am.)
double quotation markWe can’t carry on as we are.
Politics as usual has taken Britain backwards, and more of the same won’t get us where we need to be.
Today, I’ll set out a different path for our country.
That means having an honest conversation about the things we’ve ignored for too long, from fixing social care and tackling youth unemployment to giving people more control over energy, water and housing.
Hope comes from honesty.
It comes from saying the things politicians usually avoid, being straight about the challenges we face, and having the courage to fix them.
That’s exactly what I will do.
ShareLisa Nandy, the culture secretary, arriving at Albert Dock in Liverpool this morning where she was due to join a group going for a cold water swim in the docks. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPAShare
Lucy Powell says Labour committed to triple lock for this parliament – but won’t say if it could go after election
Lucy Powell, the deputy Labour leader, has been doing a media round this morning. In interviews, she stressed that Labour is committed to keeping the pensions triple lock for the duration of this parliament. But she did not deny reports that Andy Burnham might use his speech to suggest that it should go in the next parliament. (See 8.40am.)
She told Sky News:
double quotation markWe are committed to the triple lock. It’s in our manifesto. The triple lock has really delivered for pensioners, in this country, over the course of this parliament …
I don’t know what Andy’s going to say about that today, but I know that what he’s talking about is this big conversation about solving these big problems, but being really honest with people that they come at a cost.
You can’t just solve the social care crisis without having the big conversations about how you’re going to do this.
Lucy Powell being interviewed on Sky News at the Labour conference this morning. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPAShareAngela Rayner arriving at the Labour conference this morning. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPAShare
Burnham is told axing pension triple lock would be ‘electoral suicide’ as he prepares to address Labour conference
Good morning. The day after Donald Trump won his first US presidential election in 2016, Ed Miliband (at that point just an ex Labour leader) went on the World at One and gave an astute assessment of the lessons to be learnt from Trump by progressives. Trump was offering “big solutions”, he said – a theory he later fleshed out in a book called “Go Big”. Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader at the time, and he certainly offered voters a “Go Big” vision – but for various reasons he could not persuade the electorate. But today a more mainstream Labour leader is also going to embrace “Go Big”.
According to the Labour party’s overnight briefing, Andy Burnham is going to use his first conference speech as leader to set out what he will describe as “a more serious prospectus for Britain than people have been offered in a generation”.
Burnham will say:
double quotation markWe can’t carry on as we are. Politics-as-usual has taken Britain backwards. More of the same isn’t good enough and isn’t going to get us where we need to be.
According to the Labour briefing, Burnham will say this will require “honest conversation” with the public and taking on the difficult issues that have been ignored for too long by Westminster, including social care, youth unemployment, and the need for greater public control of energy, water and housing. He will say:
double quotation markHope comes from honesty and from saying the things politicians usually avoid.
As Kiran Stacey, Jessica Elgot and Pippa Crerar report in the Guardian splash, Burnham will take his first major step towards putting Britain’s utility companies into public control when he announces a new government-backed body to invest in the electricity grid.
Guardian splash Photograph: Guardian
But, for most of the media, it looks as if the story of the day will be another “Go Big” gamble by Burnham. On Sunday he revealed for the first time that he wants to fight the election on a colossal promise – a pledge to set up an NHS-style care service, with care free at the point of delivery. He did not say how this would be funded, but over the past 24 hours Downing Street has done nothing to quash speculation that part of the proposal will involve getting rid of the pension triple lock. This is one of the sacred cows of British politics, conventionally viewed as untouchable (even though in private many politicians from all parties agree with the view of almost all reputable economists, which is that in the long run its costs are unsustainable.)
Times splash Photograph: The Times/TimesTelegraph splash Photograph: Daily Telegraph/Telegraphi splash Photograph: The iExpress splash Photograph: Daily Express
Burnham does not seem likely to say he will definitely fight the next election on a proposal to get rid of the triple lock. (Labour promised in its manifesto to keep it for this parliament, and Burnham is sticking to that.) “Government sources have suggested Burnham would signal his willingness to review the policy, but stop short of a pledge to scrap it altogether,” we report today in our splash. So it looks as if Burnham will launch a pre-election debate, in the hope that he can persuade the public that axing an expensive and badly-targeted perk for pensioners is a price worth paying for transformative reform to adult social care. In his LBC phone-in yesterday, Burnham accepted there was a chance voters might just say no.
One of the voters saying no is Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, one of the most powerful unions in the Labour party. Asked about getting rid of the triple lock, she told the Times:
double quotation markI think it would be almost electoral suicide. Morally, I just don’t think it’s the right thing.
We’re the lowest in the G7 in terms of how much we spend on pensions. I think that’s an embarrassment, quite frankly, because we’re one of the six richest economies in the world. I think it would be an absolute disaster, it would send completely the wrong message. I cannot understand why we keep going back to pensioners.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: The conference opens. The first speaker in a debate on power to communities is Chris Byrant, the Northern Ireland secretary. Claire Ward, the mayor of the East Midlands, is also speaking.
10am: Lucy Powell, the deputy leader, speaks at a “what can Labour learn from its members” fringe event. Other ministers speaking at fringe events this morning include Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, and Kanishka Narayan, the AI minister.
Around 11.40am: Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, addresses the conference.
2pm: Andy Burnham gives his speech to the conference.
5pm: Bridget Phillipson, the Labour chair, and Alan Milburn, the former cabinet minister who has chaired a review on Neets, speak at a Tony Blair Institute fringe event.
Given that it will be a big day in British politics, we will have comments open later for a few hours. I do look at comments when they are open, but I can’t read them all and if you want to contact me, please email politics.live@theguardian.com. You can use this email to flag up corrections, comments for publication, questions or complaints.
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Updated at 03.43 EDT
