DEFEND Our Juries protesters supporting Palestine Action held a sit-down protest outside Labour conference in Liverpool today — cheek by jowl with a far-right demo decked out in England flags and Union Jacks.

Police began arresting people sitting peacefully on the grass holding placards reading “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” after observing the protest for about an hour and a half. They formed lines between the 100 or so protesters and a right-wing crowd four or five times larger.

Many nationalist demonstrators carried signs opposing digital ID — suggesting Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s bid to outflank Nigel Farage on law and order has backfired — while others held placards calling for support for British farmers.

Julie from Liverpool said she was protesting in support of farmers, but thought it was “great that we’re here together with those opposing digital ID.” Sarah and Mandy from Aberystwyth, who had been on the Tommy Robinson march in London earlier this month, were hostile to the digital ID plans, telling the Morning Star: “This is nothing to do with migrants, it was Tony Blair’s idea and he is a war criminal.”

The melee outside the conference was later joined by orange-vested social housing campaigners who were abused by one rightist as “lesbians” for no apparent reason.

A man who did not wish to give his name said “this is like the peasants’ revolt all over again,” and was later berating police: “You are doing the dirty work of a communist government. Come and stand with us.”

Despite their supposed stand for civil liberties, some in the right-wing rally then crowded around the Defend Our Juries protest, demanding that the police start making arrests. One walked among the sit-down protest thrusting a Union Jack in demonstrators’ faces, while another shouted repeatedly that the Palestine Action supporters would all be arrested. A chant of “You can stick your Palestine up your arse” from the flag-wavers competed briefly with a version of Bella Ciao from the Defend Our Juries sit-in, while a rally speaker urged the right to stay focused on the digital ID issue.

Defend Our Juries protester Said Patel told the Morning Star he was also opposed to digital ID cards.

The far-right mob later grouped outside the conference exit abusing delegates from behind a security barrier as “traitors” and “scum.”