Keir Starmer 'glittered' by protester

[Bettyboopsbonnet]

Is anyone watching the Labour Party Conference on TV?

If so, does anyone know who the protester was who threw glitter over Starmer as he was about to speak?

Starmer took off his jacket and shook it but he still has glitter on his palms and in his hair !

I'm no Starmer fan but given the murders of Jo Cox and David Ames (why does everyone remember Jo Cox but forget David Ames, by the way?!) I think this sort of thing must be terrifying for politicians. Possibly Starmer needs more protection. Certainly XR were being thoughtless and stupid (so nothing new there - sometimes I think they're really funded by Big Oil as a false flag outfit.)

That was a peaceful protest, because it wasn't a violent protest. Starmer wasn't 'attacked' although it might be deemed assault because the protestor did put his hands on him I think.

'What if it wasn't glitter?' - it WAS glitter.

Whether this security breach should have been able to happen is a legitimate question but it wasn't a violent incident.

@Bettyboopsbonnet you’re clearly very naive if you don’t think there are professions where physical assault is a threat - police, teachers, nurses, shop workers, social workers? It doesn’t take a lot of brain power to think about it does it 🙄.

What a horrible thing to say.

I agree it must have been extremely frightening at the time, he stayed very calm and to deliver a speech straight after is impressive.

It’s not a peaceful protest because - even though it was ‘only glitter’ - the intention was to act on starlet’s physical body.

It will also create panic where no one knows exactly what has been thrown and how scared they need to be.

A peaceful protest would be holding up a sign or something that doesn’t physically affect anyone.

It’s not ok to throw things on people. Where do you start drawing the line - glitter is ‘peaceful’, what about paint? What is it’s only small stones? And so on.

The line for peaceful protest should be not throwing anything. At or even near anyone.

@IncomingTraffic I agree but did have to smile at your “starlet” mistype 😄

Haha. Autocorrect making starmer sound more exciting there. 😁

It could catch on 😄

He recovered really well!

And his quip about power not protest, that's why we changed the party was genius!

Rachel Reeves's speech the day before was really good too, I'm actually starting to feel hopeful!

Shocking security breach!

It wasn't a violent protest.

It shouldn't have happened - due to security - but I don't accept tipping glitter as violence. There was clearly no intent to injure.

Small stones are not glitter. You can't bolster your position by talking about other things that are not the same!

Throwing glitter on someone is not acceptable. It doesn’t matter if you’re intending to injure.

Peaceful protest does not impinge on anyone’s body.

It doesn’t matter if they’re throwing cotton wool. It’s not ok.

Let’s set that boundary and stop making excuses for XR.

I'm not making excuses

I don't think it should have been able to happen.

I grew up in a democracy, I know what violent protest is, and my view is that wasn't violent. Doesn't matter who carried out the protest, my view is there was no attempt to injure.

I imagine the protestor will be charged with something, he put hands on Starmer.

You're very immature and a bit weird.

The Labour Party quickly produced a T Shirt with the slogan Sparkle with Starmer. Inspired marketing.

Starmer didn't know it was going to be non-violent. The man was behind him and could have had a knife or a gun. You could see he was scared but he acted very calmly. Quite brave.

@MidnightOnceMore the thing is, as you can see from Starmer’s face, he had no idea in that split second whether he was going to be violently attacked or not. He briefly looked very scared - the guy could have been armed, he didn’t know that, he will remember what happened to David Ames and Jo Cox. It’s crazy to minimise it when you think of it like that. It was an appalling thing to do.

@CaptainMyCaptain cross posted! And your username has made me feel a bit emotional - love that scene ❤️

It's pretty poor that someone was able to storm the podium and get that close to him like that. Where was security?

If that happened to a US presidential candidate the guy would have been shot probably.

The way Starmer dealt with it - composed, unflustered - tells us this is exactly who we need in no 10.

Yes absolutely, he reacted incredibly calmly.

We could see much more clearly what was happening.

I'm not minimising the worry. Security failure for sure.

But my view remains it was not a violent act. The law might disagree with me!

The Tories will be pissed off if it was an XR person!

Peaceful domestic violence is where the the blows are not full force so bruises dont show right?

Peaceful domestic violence is where the curled fist and the threat works right?

Peaceful would be the bloke who hecked at the tory gig or wearing a T-shirt and standing below the stage. But that was not special enough for Mr Look-at-ME. He has to go with violence and engage in direct physical intimidation.

It was an assault and a battery.

Assault is the fear of harm which was the objective of the person attacking him.

It was violence.

People minimising one person's decision to attack another for political gain encourages the ideology that physical attacks are a valid form of democratic process.

It was a violent incident.

That's the first thing I thought of, where was the security, stopping random idiots from getting so close to him in the first place? They took their time getting to him to get him off the stage too.