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| Peter Tatchell disrupts Jeremy Corbyn speech with Syria protest | Peter Tatchell disrupts Jeremy Corbyn speech with Syria protest |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Protesters led by Peter Tatchell have disrupted a speech by Jeremy Corbyn, calling on the Labour leader to demand action to end the conflict in Syria. | Protesters led by Peter Tatchell have disrupted a speech by Jeremy Corbyn, calling on the Labour leader to demand action to end the conflict in Syria. |
| Corbyn halted his speech while several protesters held up banners with slogans including “Step up and demand action in Syria” and “End the suffering in Aleppo”. | |
| Tatchell, a human rights campaigner who has previously supported the Labour party, shouted over the party leader to demand he do more to condemn the actions of Russia in the Syrian conflict. | |
| As the protesters stood silently in front of Corbyn, the Labour leader said: “It’s all right, it’s OK.” | As the protesters stood silently in front of Corbyn, the Labour leader said: “It’s all right, it’s OK.” |
| Tatchell then said: “What is happening in Aleppo is a modern-day Guernica. We haven’t heard the leader of the Labour party speak out enough to demand UK air drops to besieged civilians who are dying in their thousands.” | Tatchell then said: “What is happening in Aleppo is a modern-day Guernica. We haven’t heard the leader of the Labour party speak out enough to demand UK air drops to besieged civilians who are dying in their thousands.” |
| Corbyn could be heard consulting the Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti before temporarily leaving the stage while the protest continued. | |
| After returning to the podium, he said the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, had made it clear in the Commons that Labour opposed the war in Syria and had called for an end to the conflict. | |
| Before being allowed to continue, Corbyn was repeatedly heckled from the audience by Tatchell, who continued to demand he do more to criticise the Russian regime, which is propping up Bashar al-Assad’s brutal dictatorship. | Before being allowed to continue, Corbyn was repeatedly heckled from the audience by Tatchell, who continued to demand he do more to criticise the Russian regime, which is propping up Bashar al-Assad’s brutal dictatorship. |
| “There has to be an end to the bombing, there has to be a ceasefire, there has to be a political solution in Syria,” the Labour leader said. He added in a question and answer session after the speech: “We have condemned all bombing in Syria, including Russian bombing, and continue to do so.” | |
| Thornberry said Labour had called on the government to back air drops of aid in rebel-held eastern Aleppo. “We have taken the strongest possible stand on this issue,” she said. | |
| Corbyn’s speech marked the anniversary of the United Nations general assembly signing the universal declaration of human rights in 1948. | |
| Earlier this year the former Labour prime minister Tony Blair condemned Corbyn for inaction over Syria. “Jeremy is seen as a progressive icon as we stand by and watch the people of Syria barrel-bombed, beaten and starved into submission and do nothing,” Blair said in June. |