RACHEL Reeves's speech to Labour Party conference has been interrupted by a pro-Palestine protester.
Shouts could be heard from the conference hall in Liverpool, with one protester heard saying: "I thought we were voting for change Rachel."
The protester also shouted about the sale of arms to Israel but was then hauled out by security.
After he had been removed (below), Reeves said Labour is “not a party of protest”.
“This is a changed Labour Party, a Labour Party that represents working people, not a party of protest,” the Chancellor said.
Campaign group Climate Resistance claimed responsibility for the protest.
Sam Simons, a spokesman for the group said: “Labour promised us change – instead we’re getting more of the same. The same pandering to the fossil fuel industry; the same arms licences that are fuelling a genocide in Gaza, and the same austerity that sees the poorest hit hardest.
“It’s time for Labour to start putting the needs of people before the interests of profit. That means immediately stopping arms licences to Israel, blocking new oil and gas, and standing up for the communities already being devastated by the climate crisis.”
Former Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard called for the protester to receive an apology and compared his treatment to that of veteran Labour activist Walter Wolfgang, who was ejected from the party's conference in 2005 for heckling during a speech defending the Iraq War.
Leonard tweeted: "Grabbing this protester by the throat was an unnecessary and disproportionate use of force.
"When Walter Wolfgang was manhandled out of the conference hall in 2005, the Labour Party apologised to him. We should do the same now."
Reeves’ speech, a little over a month before her first Budget on October 30, was an attempt to strike a more optimistic tone about the UK’s economy after months of gloomy messages and the controversial scrapping of the Winter Fuel Payment.
She was also keen to pin the blame on the previous Tory government.
“I know how much damage has been done in those 14 years, let me say one thing straight up: there will be no return to austerity. Conservative austerity was a destructive choice for our public services and for investment and growth too," she said.
“Yes, we must deal with the Tory legacy and that means tough decisions but I won’t let that dim our ambition for Britain.
“So it will be a budget with real ambition, a budget to fix the foundations, a budget to deliver the change that we promised, a budget to rebuild Britain.”
Rachel Reeves also said “wealth created and wealth shared in every part of Britain” would be the “prize” of the Labour Government’s industrial strategy.
The Chancellor also said the “era of trickle-down, trickle-out dogma is over”.
“Britain is open for business once again,” she told the Labour Party conference.
“If you have felt the quiet desperation of jobs, opportunities and investment slipping away, then be assured your ambitions, your hopes, your future will not be held back any longer.
“Shovels in the ground, cranes in the sky, the sounds and the sights of the future arriving.
“Wealth created and wealth shared in every part of Britain. That is the prize, that is the Britain we’re building, that is the Britain I believe in.”
