Kemi Badenoch has used her speech at the Conservative party conference to condemn pro-Palestine marches as 'carnivals of hatred directed at the Jewish homeland'. The party leader said Britain had allowed extremism to go unchecked and called for a ban on the demonstrations.
Speaking on Yom Kippur, Badenoch said it was time for Britain to consider what had gone wrong. She criticised chants such as 'from the river to the sea' and 'globalise the intifada', arguing they implied the erasure of Jewish lives or incited violence against Jewish people.
Badenoch declared: 'You have no right to turn our streets into the theatres of intimidation, and we will not let you do so anymore.' Her remarks go further than government policy, which has given police new powers to consider the 'cumulative impact' of protests.
The conference has focused heavily on immigration, with Badenoch signalling a future Conservative government would be open to dismantling treaties to facilitate deportations. Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick urged colleagues to 'get out of Westminster' and use social media to 'shame authorities into action'.
Jenrick also stressed the need for the party to show it had changed, saying: 'When I screw up at home, just apologising isn’t enough for my wife. You’ve got to demonstrate that you’re a different person.' He suggested the party could rebrand as 'New Conservatives', echoing Tony Blair's New Labour.
