Bridget Phillipson MP—Secretary of State for Education, and the MU pick for deputy leader—visited our stand at Labour Party Conference 2025. Photo: © The MU.
This week the MU once again attended the annual Labour Party Conference, taking place in Liverpool from Sunday 28 September to Wednesday 01 October 2025.
As well as speaking to delegates and MPs about key issues, the Union also continued to argue for more funding for the arts and for music education across the UK, and for measures to fix touring in the European Union (EU).
The MU stand was as popular as ever, with hundreds of signatures added to the Fix Streaming petition and AI-themed ‘Big Tech Eats Art’ t-shirts running out on only the second day.
Meeting MPs and Ministers at the stand
MPs and Ministers who popped by the Union’s stand included Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Stephen Doughty, Kerry McCarthy, Neil Duncan Jordan, Baggy Shanker and Liam Conlon.
Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with North of England Regional Organiser Paul Reed (left) and MU Assistant General Secretary Matt Wanstall (right) at the MU Conference stand. Photo: © The MU.
Making your voice heard at the highest levels of Government
MU General Secretary Naomi Pohl, and Head of Communications and Government Relations Isabelle Gutierrez, also had numerous meetings over the course of Labour Conference.
Those they met with included Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Leader of the Scottish Labour Party Anas Sarwar, new Culture Minister Ian Murray MP, Chris Bloore MP, James Naish MP, Kerry McCarthy MP, Alex Sobel MP, Polly Billington MP and Stephen Doughty MP.
MU General Secretary Naomi Pohl and Leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Anas Sarwar. Photo: © The MU.
Ensuring touring in Europe stays top of the agenda
General Secretary Naomi Pohl was also on the panel for a Labour Movement for Europe event. She spoke alongside Nick Thomas-Symonds MP (Minister for EU Relations) and Chris Bryant MP (Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade) about the barriers still faced by our members when touring in the EU.
Chris Bryant, who up until recently was the Culture Minister, spoke passionately about his work with the MU and others to arrange a solution, and said that he had fully briefed the new Culture Minister, Ian Murray MP, who was determined to continue this fight.
On the Monday of Conference, Naomi (pictured below) appeared on the panel for a UK Music fringe event. Other speakers included the new Minister for Culture Ian Murray MP and Polly Billington MP.
Naomi spoke about touring issues facing our members, and questions were also fielded on AI and copyright, music education and the future funding of the BBC.
Urging Government to change the law to fix streaming
The MU was one of three unions to move a motion on AI and Our Rights on the floor of Labour Party Conference.
The motion asks the Government to change the law to fix music streaming by introducing legislation to ensure that:
- Appropriate and proportionate remuneration is introduced for musicians from both AI-generated music and music streaming
- AI developers training on copyright works are required to report which works they trained on and that AI-generated works are appropriately labelled for consumers
- Musicians are given the right to contract adjustment, which would allow old royalty rates to be increased to modern digital royalty rates
- Featured artists, songwriters and composers can claim their rights back from record labels and music publishers after a certain period of time, like in the US.
“We need a change in copyright law to make sure that money that is generated by music actually goes into the pockets of working musicians,” Naomi told delegates in a speech from the main Conference stage.
Sign the petition to show your support
@wearethemu There’s money in music – but it’s not going to musicians m Major corporations and big tech companies are making billions of pounds, while nearly half of musicians earn less than £14k a year We’re at Labour Party Conference calling for stronger copyright protections for music in the face of artificial intelligence, and a fair deal for all musicians from music streaming ✍️ Sign the petition at the link in bio Video description: clip of Musicians’ Union General Secretary Naomi Pohl speaking to delegates on the main stage at Labour Party Conference 2025. She is in the centre of the frame, standing at a podium that says “Renew Britain” with red staging and white behind her. The clip is boxed out on a red background, with part of the Labour Party logo in the lower left corner 📽️: Labour Party #LabourParty #MusicStreaming #AIMusic #Musicians #MusiciansUnion ♬ original sound - Musicians' Union (MU)