Scores of flags flown during Labour conference Palestine motion

Scores of Palestinian flags were waved amid lively scenes on the Labour Party conference floor during a debate on Palestine.

Delegates chanted “Free Palestine” as a motion condemning the Israeli response to protests in the Gaza Strip was moved by Colin Monehen from Harlow CLP.

After he spoke, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry admitted there are “sickening individuals” exploiting legitimate support for Palestine and expressing antisemitism.

She said: “We all support the Palestinian cause.. But I know as well, and we must all acknowledge, that there are sickening individuals on the fringes of our movement, who use our legitimate support for Palestine as a cloak and a cover for their despicable hatred of Jewish people, and their desire to see Israel destroyed.

“Those people stand for everything that we have always stood against and they must be kicked out of our party the same way Oswald Mosley was kicked out of Liverpool.”

• READ MORE: Emily Thornberry: Palestine used ‘as a cloak’ for Jew-hatred

While moving the motion, Monehen asked the conference in Liverpool to imagine that there are “two babies being born to Jerusalem: one to Palestinian parents, the other to Israeli parents”.

“I want you to realise that this motion is about wanting those babies to have a better future than the futures filled with pain, suffering and hatred. Let’s put their futures on a different trajectory to the one that has been mapped out for them.”

And he said: “They deserve a better future than the one mapped out for them.

“I want us to say this to every Palestinian: we have heard you calling from the darkness and we cannot and we will not ignore you or your tragedy.”

Mr Monehen said the Palestinian people could not be “left alone in the darkness”, saying their story “must be told”.

“I want us to send a message to Mr Trump that cutting the funding to the UNRWA, the humanitarian agency set up by the UN to assist these people in exile, born homeless, born stateless, in refugee camps will not crush their spirit.

“It will not lessen their resolve to return home.

“Expelling Palestinian diplomats will not make them disappear like a snowflake in the hot