British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband was confronted by activists demanding he lift the ban on Palestine Action while he was eating at a Pizza Express in Liverpool on Sunday night, on the sidelines of the Labour Party's annual conference.
"We would like you to de-proscribe Palestine Action. We would like you to declare genocide in Gaza," one activist told Miliband, who appeared to be dining with colleagues, in a video posted online by the campaign group Defend Our Juries.
"One hundred metres from here, there are 200 people being arrested," the activist added. "If you want to have a conversation, come and talk to us as we're being arrested."
Miliband declined, ending the exchange by saying "it was nice to meet you anyway." The pair shouted "de-proscribe Palestine Action" as they left the restaurant.
The confrontation came during a mass demonstration outside the conference, where hundreds of people sat holding handmade signs declaring support for the banned group. Merseyside Police said officers dealt with 161 people, more than 80 of whom were arrested.
Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organization in June 2025, after its activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and sprayed red paint into the engines of two military aircraft. Supporting the group is a criminal offense under British law.
A Defend Our Juries spokesman said the group had hoped new Prime Minister Andy Burnham would "bin the ban."
The following day, Miliband, who is Jewish, received a standing ovation at the conference for a speech sharply critical of Israel. He told delegates that under Burnham's leadership, the government had "reset" its approach, saying: "We call out ethnic cleansing by the settler terrorists in the West Bank. We call out Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine."
