UK politics live: Police to get powers to restrict repeat protests – as Badenoch set for Tory Conference speech

Amnesty has condemned the Palestine Action arrests as “in breach of the UK’s international human rights obligations”.

Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK’s Director of Campaigns and Communications, said: “It will never stop being upsetting and shocking to witness older people, people with disabilities, doctors in scrubs, young people and relatives of holocaust survivors being hauled from the streets into police vans.

“Police chiefs have discretion as to how they choose to police demonstrations. Arresting hundreds of people for peacefully sitting down and holding these signs is not the job of police. These arrests are in breach of the UK’s international human rights obligations and should not be happening.

“The UK government should not be criminalising and demonising these peaceful demonstrators to distract from their failure to take meaningful action to end Israel’s genocide.”

The home secretary has unveiled measures giving police more protest powers following frequent pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including an event in London on Saturday which saw almost 500 arrests.

Saturday’s event in London took place despite calls for restraint following the synagogue attack in Manchester on Thursday.

Almost 500 people were arrested, including 488 arrests for supporting banned terror organisation Palestine Action.

Police are to be given greater powers to restrict protests by allowing them to consider the “cumulative impact” of repeated demonstrations.

The measures follow frequent pro-Palestinian demonstrations including an event in London on Saturday which saw almost 500 arrests.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said repeated large-scale protests had caused “considerable fear” for the Jewish community.

The Government will amend Sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 to explicitly allow the police to take account of the cumulative impact of frequent protests on local areas in order to impose conditions on public processions and assemblies.

The Home Secretary will also review existing legislation to ensure powers are sufficient and are being applied consistently by police forces – this will include powers to ban protests outright.

Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch has faced pressure to convince members of her party that she can lead them into the next election.

“Hold your nerve. Hold your nerve,” Mrs Badenoch said in an interview with the Telegraph. “We are the only party that can deliver a stronger economy and stronger borders. If we don’t hold our nerve, we are giving our country up. That is not right.”

“There will be tangible improvement. But it never happens overnight,” she added.

Immigration is set to be one of the key themes of the Conservative Party conference.

It comes as 34,401 people have crossed the Channel in small boats so far this year, according to PA news agency analysis of Home Office figures, putting 2025 on course to break the record for most arrivals in a single year.

Kemi Badenoch said: “We must tackle the scourge of illegal immigration into Britain and secure our borders. That is why the Conservatives are setting out a serious and comprehensive new plan to end this crisis.”

The Tory party conference kicks off today.

From 2pm, a welcome will be given by conference chairman Stewart Harper, followed by party chairman Kevin Hollinrake, Scottish Conservatives leader Russell Findlay and Welsh Conservatives leader Darren Millar.

Party leader Kemi Badenoch will welcome attendees at 2.45pm.

A YouGov poll on the eve of the Tory conference showed just 11 per cent of voters believe the party is ready for government.

Meanwhile, just one in five voters believes Kemi Badenoch has done well as Tory leader, according to the survey, while nearly half (45 per cent) think she has done badly.

A seat-level forecast by the pollster found that, were a general election held today, the party would fall from having 119 MPs to just 45, while Reform would be the largest party on 311.