A speech by shadow foreign secretary David Lammy has been disrupted by lengthy heckling by a group of pro-Palestinian and climate protesters.
The Labour frontbencher had just begun speaking at a conference hosted by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) on Tuesday evening when he was interrupted for around 10 minutes.
A number of demonstrators in the audience spoke up in protest, accusing Mr Lammy of “taking shady money” from the “pro-Israel lobby” and companies they said were harming the environment.
“How many children have to be killed in Israel before you stop arming Israel?” one person shouted.
Mr Lammy replied: “I’m not currently in government, I’m not arming anybody.”
He insisted that Labour has been “calling for a ceasefire for months” in the Israel-Hamas conflict and that “we all look forward to meeting our climate commitments if we get a Labour government”.
After several protesters had spoken out, the politician joked: “It’s sort of a bit like whack-a-mole. Is there anyone else who wants to make their point on this issue?”
Mr Lammy was delivering a keynote speech at the left-leaning think tank’s event on “combatting transnational kleptocracy and illicit finance”.
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