Keir Starmer’s Labour Conference speech began with one of his usual Arsenal jokes. “My sympathies to Manchester,” he said – the audience guessing he was referring to the recent football match where his beloved team beat the treble winners 1-0.
But he added: “I really do feel sorry for any city that had to host that circus last week.” In truth, the last two weeks have been a tale of two utterly different Conferences. A Conspiracy Party Conference disfigured by open hatred, and a Labour Conference transfigured by hope.
As Mirror editor Alison Phillips told our People Move refugee event – which opened with the joyful music of the Merseyside Asylum-link Choir – “We hear an awful lot about hatred and division and how we’ve failed as a multicultural society. That does not have to be the choice. We can build the country we choose to have, and we thank you for your part in that.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan at People Move event (Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)Speaking at our fringe event, co-hosted with the Together with Refugees coalition, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan singled out the Mirror and its editor for being brave enough to stand up for refugees. “We are here to celebrate asylum seekers and refugees,” he said. “We are here to treat them with humanity rather than hostility, rather than denigrate, to celebrate,” he said.
“Those of us born in the UK were born with the golden ticket. Yet for the last 13 years, we’ve had a government that has – as a consequence of Tory politics – created a hostile environment for people who are different. From Windrush to a Home Secretary using the phrase ‘a hurricane of migrants’.”
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Phil Coburn's Exhibition at the Liverpool Museum (Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)The Mayor said People Move was the “nicest” event of Conference. “I don’t see a hurricane,” he said. “I see people helping to make Liverpool and London the greatest cities in the world.”
Conference-goers and the general public were able to visit 35 portraits at the Museum of Liverpool from our People Move Instagram project. Taken by the Mirror’s award-winning photographer Philip Coburn – himself the survivor of a bomb attack in Afghanistan – the exhibition celebrates 100 extraordinary people who have sought sanctuary in the UK.
Lord Alf Dubs is part of the exhibition (Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)Each person has shared the story of an object that connects them to home, from mathematical formulae to a bee-smoker. Participants range in age from 99 to 12, and have fled countries across the globe. In celebration of the warm welcome Liverpool has given to generations of immigrants and emigrants, the exhibition saw a gathering of famous faces, from Suzy Izzard to Lord Alf Dubs.
Lord Dubs, who escaped the Nazis to come to the UK on the Kindertransport, is part of the exhibition. “Every asylum seeker is a human being,” he told the crowd. “Every one an individual who’s come here to find safety. Public opinion is important. Our job is to speak up for them. Our job is to give hope to vulnerable people.”
Our guests spanned decades of conflict and invasion – 99-year-old DrJohn Goldsmith fled Germany with his mother after the Nazis murdered his step-father. They arrived in England in 1937, only to be interned. John later became an NHS kidney specialist, spending much of his working life in Liverpool.
“I’m very grateful to this country,” said Dr Goldsmith, who shared a candlestick that belonged to his grandmother as his special object – the only thing he has from the home he left in Germany. “I was lucky to be able to study and become a doctor, and I’ve enjoyed my work very much.”
Labour party leader Sir Keir Starmer (Getty Images)
Lisa Nandy, Shadow Cabinet Minister for International Development (Getty Images)Mykhailyna Kukharchuk, 38, arrived in the UK 85 years later with her husband and two children, fleeing Kyiv, Ukraine. “I want to thank everyone for the support we received in the UK,” she said. “We’ve met some kind-hearted people.” Mykhailyna was photographed by Phil with her rucksack.
“When you escape your life suddenly like we did, you realise the essential things you need can be packed into a small rucksack,” she says. “It teaches you to look at the other side of life.” Nzuzi Musungu is part of the Asylum Link Choir. She shared a photo of her son as she’s been fighting for the last 10 years to bring him to the UK. She had to leave him behind when she fled the Congo after being imprisoned because of her husband’s political work.
“My baby was 10 months old when I had to leave my country,” she said. Artist Kirushan Sivagnanam left Sri Lanka after his artwork was deemed “dangerous”. He is holding his first, solo, UK exhibition at the Williamson Art Gallery, across the Mersey in Birkenhead.
Yew Fook, known as Sam, said: “If I’m gay in Malaysia, the police will come and arrest me and put me seven years in prison, plus public whipping.” Sam spent two years in a detention centre in the UK. Since getting his Leave to Remain, he has made a new life here.
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“I love Liverpool!” he said. “I am a Liverpool fan. I love Mo Salah!” He shared a sarong as his object. We also hosted a fringe event with Lord Dubs and Sabir Zazai, who came to the UK from Afghanistan in the back of a lorry packed with women, men and children– and has gone on to become the Chief Executive of the Scottish Refugee Council.
Ash Sarkar spoke of playground racism in her childhood towards asylum seekers (Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)At the fringe, Lisa Nandy MP pledged to support refugees in her new role as Shadow Secretary of State for DFID (the Department for International Development), and the broadcaster and commentator Ash Sarkar spoke of playground racism in her childhood towards asylum seekers. Labour Conference is not just about the leadership, the front bench, or the main stage – it’s the coming together of a movement. A squabbling family that, in the end, has each other’s backs.
Later, in Starmer’s speech, he summed up what “real Britain” really means to him. “I don’t just see the sewage in our streams and our seas. I see the volunteers – people who love their community – standing up to fight for clean water,” he said.
“I don’t just see the crumbling concrete in our schools. I see the teachers, in the temporary classrooms, still giving our children the education they deserve. That’s the real Britain… I say – let’s stand with them. Give them a government they deserve.” This is the “Real Britain” we see too.
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