Badenoch says pro-Palestine marches have become ‘carnivals of hatred’ and that should no longer be tolerated
Badenoch says Yom Kippur is a time for introspection. And it is time for Britain to consider what has gone wrong.
She says Britain has allowed extremism to go unchecked.
She says the pro-Palestine marches have become “carnivals of hatred directed at the Jewish homeland”.
She says the protests “asinine slogans”.
You hear it in ‘from the river to the sea’, as if the homes and the lives of millions of Jewish people should be erased.
You hear it in ‘globalise the intifada’, which means nothing at all if it doesn’t mean targeting Jewish people for violence.
We have tolerated this in our country for too long …
We must now draw a line and say that in Britain you can think what you like, and within the bounds of the law you can say what you like, but you have no right to turn our streets into the theatres of intimidation, and we will not let you do so anymore.
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Updated at 16.16 CEST
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This is from James Ball, political editor at the New World and a tech specialist.
Just noticed the Conservatives’ British ICE proposal also involves using mass deployment of facial ID – still an unproven and unreliable technology that particularly struggles with non-white faces – to enable deportations. Which would inevitably mean false positives leading to detention of citizens
And this is from the FT’s Stephen Bush on the same point.
Barely a fortnight has passed since Kemi Badenoch’s reflexive and incredibly OTT hostility to the government’s proposals for digital ID.
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Corbyn’s Your Party says Labour giving more power to police to stop protesters ‘standing up against complicity in genocide’
Your Party, the new leftwing party being set up by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, has criticised the plans to give the police new powers to restrict demonstrations. In a letter to supporters, it says:
Outrageous. This morning, the home secretary Shabana Mahmood announced new restrictions on the right to protest. Her target was clear: peaceful Palestine protesters standing up against British complicity in genocide.
We know why they’re doing this. Like the Tories before them, Labour know they’re complicit in Israel’s genocide. They know they can’t defend the indefensible. So they’re trying to crush dissent instead.
Your Party is still the organisation’s working title. It may get a new title after its inaugral conference next month.
In his own message, Corbyn has described the move as “a disgraceful assault on the right to protest”.
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Updated at 18.20 CEST
Kevin Hollinrake, the Tory chair, told the party conference in his speech earlier that they had been “too soft” at times when they were in goverment. He said:
Let’s be honest. Despite the good, the good we did at times, we made mistakes.
At times we were too soft. We forgot about tough love. We were too eager to please everyone. In politics, you can’t please all the people all the time and it’s a mistake to even try.
Look at the country today. We are led by a weak prime minister who blames everyone but himself for his failures, the economic doldrums we are experiencing, the limbo we are in today. They are purely down to him.
Kevin Hollinrake speaking during Tory conference earlier. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PAShare
The formal conference proceedings are over.
There was a vote to the free speech motions. Members voted electronically, and the motion (see 4.27pm) was passed with 95% support.
But they did not tell us how many people were voting. At that point the hall was very empty
ShareAn attendee at the Tory conference. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianShare
Toby Young calls for ban on people being sacked over historic offensive tweets – like those that cost him uni watchdog job
At the conference members are now having a debate. It is on the motion that “this house believes that freedom of speech is a fundamental pillar of democracy, and we need to create stronger protections for it in law”.
The debate started only about 30 minutes after Kemi Badenoch told the conference, in effect, she would like to ban the pro-Palestine marches that have been taking place regularly in London. (See 3.14pm.)
Toby Young, the commentator who runs the Free Speech Union and who was made a Tory peer by Kemi Badenoch, is on stage responding to points raised by the debate. But there are not many. The chair is calling people who have indicated their wish to speak, but around half the people he is calling do not seem to be hear.
In the media room at one point the conference feed panned away from the stage, and showed a view of the audience. The hall is virtually empty.
In the hall Young said that, although it was not party policy, he would like to see an amendment to the employment rights bill that would “make it unlawful for companies to discipline, fire, penalise employees for things they’ve said online, unless they’re less than a year old”.
Young did not declare his own interest in the matter. Seven years ago he was forced to resign from his post on the board of the Office for Students, a university standards watchdog, after complaints about offensive tweets and comments he had made in the past.
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Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, spoke after Kemi Badenoch. He summarised the borders plan, and particularly stressed the importance for the party of criminals being deported. He said he was still shocked by the fact that Keir Starmer and Shabana Mahmood once signed a letter arguing for dangerous criminals not to be deported to Jamaica. One of them went on to commit murder.
That is a reference to this case – one that the Tories have repeatedly used to attack Labour.
In the past Labour has said that the objections to the flight taking off did not relate to the man who went on to commit murder, who was one of more than 20 people on the flight, and that if criminal justice failings meant that a dangerous man was allowed on the streets, that was the responsibility of the Conservative government in power at the time.
Chris Philp. Photograph: Phil Noble/ReutersShare
Badenoch ended with an attack on identity politics.
I am black, I am a woman, I am a Conservative, and I know that identity politics is a trap. It reduces people to categories and then pits them against each other.
But I am more than black, female and even Conservative. I am British.
Conference, I am British, as we all are. My children are British, and I will not allow anyone on the left to tell them that they belong in a different category, or anyone on the right to tell them that they do not belong in their own country.
Badenoch said Britain was a multiracial country.
But it must never become a multicultural country where shared values dissolve, loyalty fragments and we foment the homegrown terrorism that we saw on the streets of Manchester this week.
She ended by saying only the Tories could bring the country together.
UPDATE: Badenoch said:
Britain needs deep change. But I reject the politics that everything must go, that everything must be torn down, that everything is broken.
But if we leave it to Labour or Reform, Britain will be divided. Only the Conservatives can bring this country back together. This is a battle we must win by combining secure borders with a shared culture, strong values and the confidence of a great nation, we can win the debate and win the next election.
Conference, this is a party under new leadership and with a renewed purpose. We have listened, we have learned and we have changed.
Only Conservatives will tell you the truth. Only Conservatives will take the difficult decisions, do the hard work. Only Conservatives have the courage, the honesty and the plan to strengthen our borders, restore our sovereignty and rebuild our prosperity.
So, I say to you all as we start our conference, yes, we have a mountain to climb, but we have a song in our hearts, and we are up for the fight.
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Updated at 16.54 CEST
Badenoch claims Labour and Reform UK ‘two sides of same coin’, both trading in grievance and identity politics
Badenoch said Labour and Reform UK were just “shouting at one another”. She went on:
One flings around the word racist and will not be realistic about what is going on.
The other whips up outrage, offering simplistic answers that will fall apart on first contact with reality.
That is not serious politics.
Conference, neither of those parties offers the leadership that Britain deserves.
The truth is that Labour and Reform are two sides of the same coin. Both deal in grievance, both divide our country into tribes and labels, both practice identity politics, which will destroy our country. And I am saying no to division and no to identity politics.
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Badenoch says Tories will draw up plan to ensure ECHR withdrawal works in Northern Ireland
Badenoch says Wolfson has concluded that leaving the ECHR is not incompatible with the Good Friday agreement. She goes on:
I know that there will be particular challenges in Northern Ireland.
But difficulties are not a reason to avoid action. They are a reason to work harder to get it right.
She says she is going to ask Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, to carry out a review into union-wide implementation of the plan. That will be put to the people at the electon. She says it will be “a clear, thorough and robust plan, not the vague mush”.
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Badenoch is now talking about immigration.
She says many of the problems in Britain relate to the use of litigation as a political weapon – what she calls lawfare.
She says laws like ECHR are “now being used in ways never intended by their original authors”.
She says the whole system needs to change, but she will start with the ECHR.
None of us had a problem with the rights in the original charter. It was drafted in 1950 by British lawyers, Conservative lawyers, and it drew on British traditions.
The problems stem from how it has been enforced and how its meaning has been twisted and changed.
Today, it is used as a block on deportations, a weapon against veterans and a barrier to sentencing and public order.
Labour pretend it can be fixed.
But when a group of nine European countries, led by Italy, recently pushed for reforms at the court, the Labour government did not support them.
Badenoch says she set out five tests for whether or not the UK should remain in the ECHR. She asked Lord Wolfson KC, the shadow attorney general, to carry out an analysis of this. (See 12.13pm.)
She quotes from Wolfson’s conclusion.
When it comes to control of our sovereign borders, preventing our military veterans from being pursued indefinitely, ensuring prison sentences are applied rigorously for serious crimes, stopping disruptive protests, or placing blanket restrictions on foreign nationals in terms of social housing and benefits, the only way such positions are feasible would be to leave the ECHR.
And she says the shadow cabinet has decided, on that basis, that the UK should leave the ECHR.
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Updated at 16.30 CEST
