161 Face Police Action After Protest Outside Labour Conference in Liverpool
Merseyside Police took action against 161 people after a pro-Palestine demonstration outside the Labour Party conference in Liverpool on Sunday.
The force said 82 people were arrested on suspicion of wearing or carrying an article supporting a proscribed organisation, a group banned under UK law. A further 79 were reported for summons, a paper process where details are sent to a court to decide on a charge without custody. The 82 people arrested were taken into custody and later released on bail. The figures were published in an official September 2026 bulletin titled "Update on arrests at protest in Liverpool" Merseyside Police.
The protest was organised by Defend Our Juries and took place outside the conference centre in Liverpool city centre The Guardian. Many protesters held handmade banners expressing support for Palestine Action, a banned group. Merseyside Police estimated that 180 people attended. Defend Our Juries claimed more than 200 people took part.
Police said not everyone present was committing a criminal offence. Officers said the 82 arrests turned on the specific act of wearing or carrying an article seen as supporting a banned group, not on attendance alone.
Defend Our Juries said one of those arrested was 94-year-old human rights barrister Margaret Owen. Separately, two activists confronted Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband about the arrests during a meal at a Pizza Express in Liverpool city centre. The number arrested this year is 16 more than were arrested at a similar pro-Palestine demonstration on the first day of Labour's conference last year in Liverpool.
The broader context here is the venue and the form of protest. A demonstration outside a governing party's conference seeks direct attention from ministers and delegates inside. It also puts police work under close political and media observation. Handmade banners suggest loose, person-to-person planning that is harder to track in advance and easy to copy.
Looking at what this means for the days ahead, the split between arrest and summons will shape the next steps. Custody followed by bail contained the incident on the day. Reports for summons move any decision to charge into a slower, paper-based process. Competing attendance estimates reflect a contest over support, while the police emphasis that presence alone was not an offence speaks to legality and proportionality. What follows will turn on how those summons cases proceed, how bail conditions are applied, and whether further demonstrations during the conference adopt the same tactics.
