Shabana Mahmood: Government must ‘stem the rising tide of anti-Semitism’
This week, two Jewish people were killed in a terrorist attack at a synagogue in Manchester. On Sky News, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said it was ‘devastating’ that some British Jews don’t feel safe in their country. She said the government had to ‘stem the rising tide of anti-Semitism’ and ensure that Jewish life can ‘continue to flourish’ in the UK. Trevor Phillips played Mahmood a clip showing Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy being jeered by the crowd at a vigil held for the victims of the attack, and asked whether that reaction was caused by the government recognising the state of Palestine, or not stopping weekly pro-Palestine demonstrations in London. Mahmood said that the person responsible for the attack was ‘the attacker himself’, and that we shouldn’t ‘elide that into the wider questions of what’s going on in the Middle East.’
Shabana Mahmood: Police to be given new powers to deal with ‘cumulative’ protests
Keir Starmer asked those planning to attend Palestine marches this weekend to ‘respect the grief of British Jews’, but the protests are going ahead, with a spokesperson for protest group Defend Our Juries saying, ‘Cancelling peaceful protests lets terror win’. Since the government proscribed Palestine Action in July, hundreds have been arrested for showing support for the group, and police chiefs have expressed concern about the amount of resources needed to police protest events. On the BBC, Mahmood said new legislation would give police powers to restrict protests that cause ‘cumulative disruption’. Laura Kuenssberg asked whether these powers were designed to ban Palestine protests in particular. Mahmood said it was ‘not about a ban’ but ‘restrictions and conditions’, and that it would affect all protests that cause cumulative disruption. The Home Secretary called for a balance between ‘the freedom to protest’ and the right of the ‘wider community’ to be free from ‘intimidation and fear’.
Kemi Badenoch on where deportees would be sent: ‘Not here’
As the Conservative conference begins, Kemi Badenoch has announced plans to leave the ECHR, and deport 150,000 people a year. On the BBC, Laura Kuenssberg repeatedly asked Badenoch where these migrants would be sent to, but did not get a straight answer. Badenoch said she was ‘tired of us asking all these irrelevant questions about where should they go’, and said illegal immigrants were ‘committing crimes’ and ‘hurting people’. Kuenssberg suggested that Badenoch’s plan could only be credible if she said where deportees would go. Badenoch said that was a ‘defeatist attitude’, and that she would achieve her targets with a new ‘removals force’ which would be funded by closing down asylum hotels.
Kemi Badenoch: ‘We have to hold our nerve’
On GB News, Camilla Tominey asked the Conservative leader how Tories were supposed to hold their nerve when poll ratings have been ‘tanking’ under Badenoch’s leadership. Badenoch said it would be a bumpy road, but said she could be the next prime minister in four years. She said her party have been spending the time making sure they have ‘robust policies’, unlike Reform whose policies ‘collapse’ when someone asks a question. Tominey suggested that Badenoch’s immigration plans were an admission that Reform will become the largest party, and the Conservatives would ‘prop [them] up’. Badenoch said, ‘not at all’, that the Conservatives are the only party that can deliver a strong economy and strong borders. She said the economy will ‘be on fire’ if Nigel Farage is elected, and that Reform have no experience in government and would be ‘learning on the job’.
Lucy Powell: ‘We do need a bit of a course correction’
Laura Kuenssberg also spoke to Labour deputy leader candidate Lucy Powell, asking her to comment on her rival Bridget Phillipson’s assertion that Powell would ‘encourage division and disunity’. Powell said that was a ‘ridiculous claim to make’, and that she wanted the government to succeed. However, she claimed Labour can’t ‘pretend everything is going great’, and the party needed to ‘draw in all the voices from our broad movement’. Kuenssberg noted that former home secretary Alan Johnson had said having a deputy leader who is not part of the cabinet would be ‘very destabilising’. Powell said, ‘this is a party role… not a government role’, and that being more connected to the party’s communities would allow Labour to tell a ‘much stronger story about the purpose of this Labour government’.
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