Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The House will see the note on the Order Paper that says:
“The Instrument has not yet been considered by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.”
However, I can confirm that the Joint Committee met this afternoon, considered the instrument and has nothing to report concerning the draft order.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
I beg to move,
That the draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2020, which was laid before this House on 13 July, be approved.
That confirmation from the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) is very welcome. Subject to the agreement of this House and the other place, the draft order will come into force on Friday 17 July 2020.
The threat we face from terrorism remains significant, but, as assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service and national lead for counter-terrorism policing Neil Basu has said, right-wing terrorism is the fastest-growing terror threat in the United Kingdom. We can never entirely eliminate the threat from terrorism, but the Government are determined to do all we can to minimise the danger it poses and keep the public safe.
The nature of terrorism is constantly evolving. There are organisations that recruit, radicalise, promote and encourage terrorism, as well as those that actually commit terrible acts of violence against innocent people with the aim of undermining our democracy. Proscription is therefore an important part of the Government’s strategy to disrupt the full range of terrorist activities.
The group that we propose to add to the list of terrorist organisations, amending schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000, is Feuerkrieg Division, or FKD. This is the 25th order under section 3(3)(a) of that Act. FKD is a white supremacist group whose ideology stands in direct contrast to the core values of our United Kingdom. Its actions, which seek to divide communities, stir up hatred and glorify violence, are reminders of the darkest times in Europe. Proscribing this group will prevent its membership from growing and help to stop the spread of propaganda that allows a culture of hatred and division to thrive. It will also help to prevent FKD from radicalising people who may be vulnerable to extreme ideologies and at risk of emulating the terrorist acts that they glorify.
Under section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Secretary has the power to proscribe an organisation if she believes that it is currently concerned with terrorism. If the statutory test is met, the Home Secretary will then exercise her discretion to proscribe the organisation. The Home Secretary takes into account a number of factors in considering whether to exercise this discretion. These include the nature and scale of an organisation’s activities and the need to support other members of the international community in tackling terrorism. The effect of proscription is to outlaw a listed organisation and ensure that it is unable to operate in the United Kingdom. It is a criminal offence for a person to belong to, support or arrange a meeting in support of a proscribed organisation, or to wear clothing or carry articles in public that arouse reasonable suspicion that they are a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation. Proscription acts to halt fundraising and recruitment while making it possible to seize cash associated with the organisation.
Given its wide-ranging impact, the Home Secretary exercises her power to proscribe only after thoroughly reviewing the available evidence on an organisation. This includes open-source material, intelligence material, and advice reflecting consultation across Government, including the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The cross-Government Proscription Review Group supports the Home Secretary in her decision-making process.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the Minister for bringing this legislation to the House. It is very important to have it in place so that these groups are outlawed at a very early stage. He mentioned the police. Are there, and will there be, enough resources set aside for police forces to ensure that they can keep an eye on all the people who are involved in these activities?
Kevin Foster
The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I cannot get into commenting on particular police operations in relation to this group or any other group that may be of interest for terrorism activities. However, he will be aware of the investment we are putting into the police and the resources that we have made available to counter-terrorism policing more generally, as well as for tackling the rise of far-right extremism.
Having carefully considered all the evidence, the Home Secretary believes that FKD is currently concerned with terrorism and the discretionary powers weigh in favour of proscription. Although I am unable to comment on specific intelligence, I can provide the House with a summary of the group’s activities. FKD is a white supremacist group founded in late 2018 that has an international footprint, with members across North America and Europe. The group celebrates the concepts promoted in a collection of essays that advocate the use of violence and mass murder in pursuit of an apocalyptic race war. While the bulk of FKD’s activity is online, members have engaged in distributing violent, racist and antisemitic propaganda. In mid-2019, the group reportedly called for the deaths of a European Parliament politician and YouTube’s chief executive officer.
FKD’s members have been arrested on terrorism charges both in the UK and overseas. In 2019, US authorities charged several individuals with a variety of offences, including weapons charges, plotting to bomb a synagogue and attack members of the LGBTQ community, plotting to bomb a major news network, and distributing information related to explosives and weapons of mass destruction. In September 2019, UK police apprehended a 16-year-old on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism. As a result, the group distributed among its members a list of police buildings and an image of the chief constable of West Midlands police with a gun to his head and the words “race traitor” across his eyes, urging members to carry out attacks in retaliation for the arrest of one of its followers. In October 2019, a 21-year-old appeared in court in London charged with terror offences relating to his purported support for FKD. He allegedly encouraged the mass murder of members of the Jewish and LGBTQ communities.
Our strategy to combat terrorism looks at the full spectrum of activity. This includes ensuring that groups who call for violence and mass murder, and who unlawfully glorify horrific terrorist acts, are prevented from continuing to stir up hatred and encouraging violence. It is therefore right that this House agrees to add FKD to the list of proscribed organisations in schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000.
Kevin Foster
I start by welcoming the overall support for this measure from the Opposition Benches and in particular the constructive tone struck by the Labour and SNP spokespeople in responding to my speech. In terms of the process, I hear what the shadow Security Minister says. He will appreciate that, in a democracy, criminalising joining an organisation should be something that we do only where there is significant evidence and intelligence that it has gone beyond holding views that we would all disagree with or dislike and into an area of extremism, violence and inciting hatred. I can assure him that the process to deal with aliases is more truncated, in allowing the Home Secretary to deal with that via a negative instrument rather than the full process of proscription. Again, we welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support.
The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) hit the nail on the head when she said that this was a growing threat. We see what is happening online, and those of us who were elected alongside her in 2015 in particular will remember the contributions of the former hon. Member for Batley and Spen. We will always remember her message that we have more in common than the values of the person who took her life away.
The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), a fellow Royal College of Defence Studies alumnus, gave a typically powerful performance. I welcome his overall comments, but I hope he will appreciate that it is inappropriate for me, at the Dispatch Box, to go into any considerations we are making of other groups or the nature of the intelligence involved. We recognise that the methods these groups are using are changing. They are adapting online and using different types of platforms, particularly moving away from some of the larger ones and on to the smaller ones. I can reassure him that we plan to publish a full Government response to the online harms White Paper and to bring in online harms legislation in this Session of Parliament.
I very much appreciated the speech from the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), and the work that she is doing to tackle these issues. Again, it would not be right for me to comment on what the police and intelligence agencies may or may not be doing in relation to particular groups or investigations, but we are conscious of these matters. We have the new Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill going through, and other ongoing work. I would just caution her that, although the FKD claimed on one of its social media feeds to have dissolved, the Home Secretary is satisfied, on the basis of the intelligence, that an active group is still engaged in terrorism and that it meets the statutory test. I am loth to take the group’s own proclamation that it has dissolved as the final word on these things. As I say, I cannot go into the intelligence behind the decision, but we are satisfied that it meets the statutory test of being active and that proscription was therefore essential.
As has rightly been pointed out, proscription is just part of the process and, sadly, does not in itself eliminate these types of group and their activities. It is important that we, the police and the intelligence agencies—and the courts, when people come before them—work to ensure that appropriate action is taken, and that the cases are considered fairly under a type of justice that, sadly, they do not believe in themselves. We, as a values-based democracy, must ensure that they receive a fair trial. I welcome the overall support that has been expressed and the constructive nature of the debate. I thank Members for their support.
Question put and agreed to.