Building Homes
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts(5 days, 6 hours ago)
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Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, you cannot live in a planning permission and you cannot wish new homes magically into existence. All the encouragement in the world will not help if builders cannot find the staff, materials and finance to put roofs over people’s heads. I have led a council, and I really want to ensure that we can put this rhetoric into reality.
In cities where Labour tells us that people want to live, the targets have been reduced. That makes the mountain to climb elsewhere even steeper. I will highlight the case of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, where the new targets are nearly three times the best housing delivery that that district borough has ever achieved. Does the Minister think that setting these unachievable targets brings the planning system into disrepute?
I want to place on record a story I read in the Financial Times this week about the best quarterly housing completions ever in the last 50 years. In 1978, 75,000 houses were completed in a single quarter. The targets mean that, for the rest of this Parliament, a sustained completion of 90,000 is needed. The Minister and I have worked closely over the years to get homes built. I have helped her in a small way with PINS; she has helped me with parishioners. My concern is that the Government are pinning the blame on councils. That is unfair, and I think she knows that.
Lord Fuller (Con)
What steps will the Government take to ensure that the national agencies that have single-handedly held up hundreds of thousands of homes being delivered over the last three years—such as Natural England, Highways England and National Rail, or whatever it is called nowadays—will roll up their sleeves and stop blocking building so we can get the nation building?
Holocaust Memorial Day
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, and my noble friend Lord Dubs. I refer to my interests in the register, not least my roles with the Antisemitism Policy Trust and HOPE not hate.
I will focus on the importance of bearing witness to evil and the onus on us all to make sure that the truth lives on. My family arrived in the UK in the 1880s, fleeing the pogroms of tsarist Russia. My ancestors fled state-sanctioned violence and arrived here in the hope of a better and safer life. Little did they realise that their choice of final destination was to guarantee the survival of my family. As far as we know, not one of those who chose to remain in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus survived the Shoah. For my family, anti-Jewish hatred is not an academic exercise; it is formative to my understanding of my place in the world.
As they have for many noble Lords, the pogroms and the Shoah have shaped not just my existence but my worldview. My family knows only too well where hate can lead and the importance of security and freedom. We also know the value of truth and the danger of misinformation, distortion and propaganda, which is why bearing witness to horror and evil is so important. It is why people’s stories, as horrendous as some of the details are, need to be heard, repeated, shared and remembered, not just on Holocaust Memorial Day but always.
The facts of history are often too easily forgotten. The sheer scale of the Holocaust, and of the genocides that have followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, enables us to remember facts and statistics but can allow us to ignore or forget the impact on people, families and communities. People’s stories and experiences—their pain and survival—touch our hearts and ensure that we remember where hate and division can lead. Personal testimony also allows us to directly counter propaganda, lies and distortion about some of the greatest crimes that the planet has ever seen.
Your Lordships’ House recognised this principle as soon as the first concentration camps were liberated in 1945. Within days of the liberation of Buchenwald, in April 1945 our Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, asked a delegation of parliamentarians from both Houses to travel to the camp to see the horrors at first hand and bear witness on behalf of our Parliament and our country. Two Members of your Lordships’ House attended on our behalf: Earl Stanhope and Lord Addison. Their experiences were published as The Report of a Parliamentary Delegation by the Prime Minister.
I consider myself quite political and generally better informed than most on matters related to the Holocaust, but I did not know of this report or delegation until a few years ago. Just before the pandemic, my noble friend Lady Golding, a fellow resident of north Staffordshire, gave me some of her parliamentary papers that she thought might be of interest. When I started to go through the box, I realised that they were not just her papers but included some of her father’s, who had been the MP for Caerphilly, including during the war. Ness Edwards was one of the 10 members of the delegation to travel to Buchenwald. My noble friend unfortunately cannot be with us today, but I wish to share the words she used when discussing her father and his experiences during a debate in the other place:
“My father was a member of that delegation. His name was Ness Edwards. He was the hon. Member for Caerphilly for 29 years. I remember him telling me about the horrors of what went on in that camp. They are engraved for ever on my mind and heart.
There has been much talk tonight about the passage of time. I was but a child on the day when I opened the door to my father on his return. He stood there, grey and drawn, and said, ‘Do not touch me. I am covered with lice. Everyone in the camps is covered with lice. We have been deloused many times, but I am still covered with lice.’ He could not sleep for many weeks, and he had nightmares for many years … My father spoke to me and to my brothers and sisters about what he had seen in the camp. He told us of the hanging gibbets. Human beings were put on hooks and hung from under their chins until they died. He told us that the people in charge of the camp rather liked tattoos, and they skinned people and used their skins to make lampshades. They discovered that, when people die, their skin is given to shrinking too quickly, so they tried skinning them alive. My father showed me photographs of piles of bodies on carts. Three weeks later, the allies had not had time to remove them all. He showed me photographs of men in thin clothes, photographs of skeletons, and photographs of men with haunted eyes. I will always remember the look in those men’s eyes—the look of utter bewilderment and incomprehension. They had been starved and beaten, yet their spirit was still there”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/12/1989; col. 901.]
Ness and the nine other representatives of our Parliament did us a huge service by travelling to bear witness. The final paragraph of their report states:
“In preparing this report, we have endeavoured to write with restraint and objectivity, and to avoid obtruding personal reactions or emotional comments. We would conclude, however, by stating that it is our considered and unanimous opinion, on the evidence available to us, that a policy of steady starvation and inhuman brutality was carried out at Buchenwald for a long period of time; and that such camps as this mark the lowest point of degradation to which humanity has yet descended. The memory of what we saw and heard at Buchenwald will haunt us ineffaceably for many years”.
In recent months, I have thought often of the parliamentarians who chose to travel to the camps to bear witness, who determined that reading testimony and watching Pathé News was not enough and who decided that they needed to be able personally to share their experiences of hell with our Parliament, the Government and future generations. It was in this spirit that I chose to go to Israel last month with Labour Friends of Israel on a solidarity mission to visit the site of yet another pogrom, to meet the survivors and hostage families, to see for myself the devastation and to be able to bear witness for the next generation.
The history of the Jewish community has been filled with too many chapters of pain and death. We are a very resilient community, but the human cost we have paid for our very existence is far too high. My generation was meant to read about the persecution of Jews in history books. Pogroms, death, torture, systematic killing and anti-Jewish propaganda were for my grandparents’ generation. I was meant to live in an enlightened world where humanity and human rights are protected and cherished. I honestly believed that I would never be speaking about a modern-day pogrom, yet that is what happened on 7 October in southern Israel.
I am still struggling to process everything I saw. I could spend the next hour telling your Lordships’ House about the horrors I saw and the survivors I met. I will not do so, but I want to share one story: the experiences of a young woman I met only weeks ago. In Tel Aviv, the survivors of the massacre at the Nova music festival have claimed a space and filled it with the remnants of the festival. A young woman who had survived the massacre joined us as we saw the burned-out cars, the festival toilets riddled with gun holes and the drinks fridges in which people hid from terrorists. She told us of the horrors that had happened in each part of the festival: of the young disabled girl who was burned alive with her father; of the people killed while hiding in toilets; of the running, the rapes, the shooting and the brutality.
They have recreated the lost property area of the festival. It is reminiscent of visiting Kanada at Auschwitz. Every item left behind in the lost property is now evidence of someone who died and has not been able to return to claim it. On screens throughout the venue, there were recordings of the party taken before the massacre—young people dancing and enjoying themselves before hell was unleashed. The images of their laughter and joy are burned into my memory, because so few of them survived. Nova was a trance music festival. I did not even know what it was, but apparently Israel leads the world in trance music DJs. As we toured the exhibition, we listened to their music. I had to stop when one of the songs was a trance version of the Hatikvah, as I stood in the remnants of a massacre.
Our guide told us not just of her personal trauma on 7 October, and how her life was saved because her boyfriend made them flee five minutes before everyone else, but of what happened to her in the hours and days that followed. She spoke of watching on a video call her best friend running for her life, desperately trying to get away from the terrorists, and the moment of complete horror when she heard a shot and the call ended. She told me about how she struggled to get hold of her friends as the day progressed and her fear of not knowing who was alive and who was dead, as she hid in a house on the edge of the festival not knowing whether the terrorists were going to find them next.
Our guide explained that, in the days that followed, she had to choose which funerals to go to. She had lost 20 friends; her boyfriend had lost 45. There were too many funerals, and she could not attend them all. She could not say goodbye. Her story is one of thousands that happened on 7 October. Already, however, people are trying to downplay the attacks to distort the facts and claim lies and smears. It is our job to make sure people know what really happened.
To finish, I will touch on the anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim hate that has followed on our streets since 7 October. Not a day has gone past when members of our community are not scared. I am therefore so grateful to CST and its extensive network of volunteers, who are doing everything they can to try to keep us safe when others are trying to hurt us. There cannot be any room for bad faith actors who want to make political gain by exploiting the fear of those touched by 7 October and the awful war that has followed in Gaza. Together, we must resist the efforts to divide us.
As Holocaust Memorial Day has reminded us this year, our freedoms are all too fragile. There is a responsibility on all of us to do everything we can to protect and cherish them. The work of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Holocaust Educational Trust do extraordinary work to remind us where the hate can lead. However, the onus is on us to listen and to act so that this time, “never again” really does mean never again.
International Women’s Day
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, this is an incredibly important debate. It is a privilege, and not one that I take for granted, to be in your Lordships’ House as one of the 226 women who have the right to sit in this hallowed Chamber. As this debate has demonstrated, my fellow noble Baronesses are both extraordinary and completely intimidating.
On Wednesday, for International Women’s Day, I addressed students on behalf of the Anne Frank Trust. I highlighted not only the importance of telling women’s stories but the power of amplifying their lived experiences, wherever they may be. Collectively, we all made a promise that this week—and, I hope, in future weeks—we would seek to tell the stories of the women who have made a mark and ensure that the world knows their names. I seek to deliver on that promise today.
I refer noble Lords to my declarations of interests. I am proud to be the chief executive of Index on Censorship, a charity that endeavours to provide a voice to the persecuted and campaigns for freedom of expression around the world. I work daily with dissidents, both men and women, who risk everything to change their societies and communities for the better. But today, I would like to read the names of some of those women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the past year for the supposed crime of doing something that we take for granted every day: using the human right to freedom of expression.
Deborah Samuel, a student, was brutally murdered in Nigeria after being accused of blasphemy on an academic social media platform.
Nokuthula Mabaso, a leading human rights defender in South Africa and the leader of the eKhenana Commune, was assassinated outside her home in front of her children.
Shireen Abu Akleh, a veteran Palestinian-American correspondent for Al Jazeera, was killed while reporting on an Israeli raid in the West Bank.
Jhannah Villegas, a local journalist in the Philippines, was killed at her home. The police believe that her murder was linked to her work.
Francisca Sandoval, a local Chilean journalist, was murdered, and several others hurt, when gunmen opened fire on a Workers’ Day demonstration.
Mahsa Amini’s name is all too familiar to us as her murder inspired a peaceful revolution that continues to this day. She was murdered by the Iranian morality police for “inappropriate attire”.
Oksana Baulina, a Russian journalist, was killed during shelling by Russian forces in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
Oksana Haidar, a 54 year-old Ukrainian journalist and blogger better known as Ruda Pani, was killed by Russian artillery north-east of Kyiv.
Oleksandra Kuvshynova, a Ukrainian producer, was killed outside of Kyiv while working with Fox News.
Petronella Baloyi—I apologise for my pronunciation—a South African land and women’s human rights defender, was gunned down while in her home.
Yessenia Mollinedo Falconi, a Mexican journalist who was the founder and editor of El Veraz as well as a crime and security correspondent, received a death threat a fortnight before she was shot. She was killed alongside her colleague, Sheila Johana García Olivera.
Vira Hyrych, a journalist for Radio Free Europe’s Ukrainian service, was killed by Russian shelling.
Cielo Rujeles, wife of the socialist leader Sócrates Sevillano, was shot and killed alongside her husband in Colombia.
Luz Ángela Quijano Poveda, a delegate of the Community Action Board in Punta Betín, Colombia, was murdered at her home.
Sandra Patricia Montenegro, a PE teacher and social leader, was shot and killed in front of her students in Colombia.
Clemencia Arteaga, a Colombian indigenous social leader and prosecutor, was murdered by gunmen at her home in the reservation of the Nasa people.
Melissa Núñez, a transgender activist, was shot dead by armed men in Honduras.
María del Carmen Vázquez, a Mexican activist and member of the Missing Persons of Pénjamo, was murdered by two men at her home. She was looking for her son, who disappeared last summer.
Blanca Esmeralda Gallardo, an activist and member of the Voice of the Disappeared in Puebla collective, was assassinated on the side of the highway in Mexico as she waited for a bus to take her to work.
Yermy Chocué Camayo, the treasurer of the Chimborazo indigenous reservation in Colombia and a human rights defender, was killed as she headed home.
Dilia Contreras, an experienced presenter for RCN Radio in Colombia, was shot dead in a car alongside her colleague after covering a local festival.
Edilsan Andrade, a Colombian social leader and local politician, was shot dead in the presence of one of her children.
Jesusita Moreno, otherwise known as Doña Tuta, was a human rights activist who defended Afro-Colombian community rights. Facing threats against her life, she was assassinated while at her son’s birthday party.
María Piedad Aguirre, a Colombian social leader who was a defender of black communities, was violently murdered with a machete. She was found by one of her grandchildren.
Elizabeth Mendoza, a social leader, was shot and killed in her home in Colombia. Her son, husband and nephew were also murdered.
María José Arciniegas Salinas, a Colombian indigenous human rights defender, was assassinated by armed men.
Shaina Vanessa Pretel Gómez, who was known among the LGBTQI+ community for her activism, was shot dead early in the morning by a suspect on a motorbike.
Rosa Elena Célix Guañarita, a Colombian human rights defender, was shot while socialising with friends.
Mariela Reyes Montenegro, a leader of the National Union of Workers and Employees of Public Services, was murdered in Colombia.
Alba Bermeo Puin, an indigenous leader and environmental defender in Ecuador, was murdered when she was five months pregnant.
Mursal Nabizada, a former female member of Afghanistan’s Parliament and women’s rights campaigner, was murdered at her home.
This is not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination; I apologise for going slightly over the time limit. Compiling the names and profiles of women who have been killed as a result of their right to exercise freedom of expression is almost impossible, not least because of the nature of the repressive regimes they live under. Every name I have just read out represents thousands of others who put their lives at risk day in, day out to speak truth to power. They were mothers, grandmothers, daughters, nieces, granddaughters, sisters, aunts, friends, partners and wives. To their families, they were the centre of the world. To us, today, their stories bring fear and inspiration in equal measure. They are heroes whose bravery we should all seek to emulate.
International Holocaust Memorial Day
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I am not sure how to follow the noble Lord, Lord Polak. As ever, his contribution was thoughtful and considered; I am grateful to follow it. Before I start, I refer the House to my register of interests, specifically that I am a trustee of the Antisemitism Policy Trust and a director of Hope not Hate.
This is, I believe, the first time noble Lords have had a debate to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. The fact that it is happening today is a testament to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, who has done so much in the field of Holocaust commemoration. I thank him for his ongoing commitment and, of course, for securing today’s debate.
I wish that this debate could be solely one of reflection and commemoration; that we could stand here today and consider the issues of anti-Jewish hate and fascist ideology as consigned to the dustbin of history; and that the bulk of today’s debate could be historical comment, highlighting the horrors experienced by the victims and the inspirational acts of the survivors, whose testimony has changed the world, and celebrating those who worked against their own Governments to protect and hide their fellow citizens.
This debate should be a celebration of the life of Zigi Shipper, an Auschwitz survivor who sadly passed away yesterday. It should be an opportunity for us to honour the work of my noble friend Lord Dubs, who has used his own story to inspire so many others. We should be sharing the testimony of Janine Webber, a Holocaust survivor whom many of us were privileged to hear last week at the Holocaust Educational Trust. We should be discussing these amazing people and many others whose names we will learn in today’s debate.
I wish that today’s debate was anchored in the past and that anti-Semitism was not a contemporary matter that required noble Lords’ attention—but I am afraid it is. The Holocaust should have been a unique moment in our global history. It should have shaken the world to its core. For many of us in this place today, I am sure that that is exactly what it has done. Holocaust Memorial Day provides us all with a moment of reflection to remind us of where political rhetoric and hate can lead. It gives us an opportunity to challenge our own behaviour and asks us to recommit to challenging racism, hate and bigotry everywhere we see them.
That brings me to the world we live in today. Noble Lords have already touched on the scourge of anti-Jewish hate that seems far too prevalent in modern society. In recent weeks, we have seen the National Union of Students forced to accept that its culture is hostile to Jewish students. We have seen numerous stories about the antics of Kayne West and his attacks on the Jewish community. It is 2023 and this ancient hatred is in the newspapers nearly every day.
This morning, CST, the Community Security Trust, published a new report detailing anti-Semitic incidents on university campuses across the UK. The past two years have seen a 22% increase in anti-Jewish hate incidents. There have been 150 verified and reported anti-Semitic incidents on British campuses in the past two years. For context, there are only 271,000 Jews in the UK of all ages, so this is a terrifying level of hate. Our universities are meant to be cathedrals—or should I say synagogues—of learning and enlightenment. You would hope that, if there was one place where vile racism and anti-Jewish hatred were challenged and beaten, it would be in our educational establishments. This is clearly not the case. I want to put on the record my heartfelt thanks to Mark Gardner and his team at CST, who work tirelessly to keep the Jewish community safe both on campus and in wider society.
I am aware that time is short in this debate but it would be remiss of me not to recognise the amazing work of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Holocaust Educational Trust, which ensure that the legacy of this evil chapter of our history is remembered every day, not just on 27 January. This is a vital debate and I am grateful that we are having it, but I fear that our work in challenging anti-Jewish hate is far from over.
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent ExcerptsTuesday 17th January 2023
(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is still with some astonishment and a great deal of trepidation that I rise, for the first time, to speak in today’s debate. I never imagined for a moment that this is where my journey would take me, and I hope that I will always be in awe of this building and of the calibre of debate in this Chamber.
Over the last month, I would have been lost, both metaphorically and in reality, without the kindness and support of noble Lords from across the House. Their collective welcome has been incredibly reassuring, and I am genuinely grateful. However, I believe I owe an even greater debt of gratitude to the officers and staff of the House, especially our wonderful doorkeepers, who have indulged my every ridiculous question, ensured that I have found my way and so far managed to keep me on the straight and narrow—a far from easy task.
I also have a number of noble Lords to thank personally, including my sponsors, my noble friends Lord Coaker and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, who I am proud to have known for many years. It is a personal joy to be able to work with them in this House. I would also like to thank my noble friend Lord Haskel, who has been given the unenviable task of mentoring me since my introduction to this House.
I stand here today in the footsteps of the women in my family, who instilled in me a hunger to fix the world’s ills—although I cannot imagine that they ever thought for one moment that a member of our family would be in this place. My family arrived in the UK in the 1890s, fleeing the pogroms. My nana, in the first generation to be born here, was a determined woman. She taught me that food was love, that no one should ever be hungry and that, whatever little you had, someone else always had less, so the onus was on us to help them.
In 1936, when the Jarrow marchers arrived in London, my nana was waiting for them with food and socks. In the run-up to the Battle of Cable Street, she spent 48 hours stuffing razor blades into tomatoes, to be used as defensive weapons against the fascists—although that is a story she never wanted my mother and me to know, because she believed we would get ideas.
My mum did get ideas. She became a trade union activist and, ultimately, deputy general secretary of MSF and Amicus. She took me on my first demo when I was still in nappies; when I was four, she took me to collect food for the miners, and when I was 11 on my first anti-fascist demo. She has dedicated her life to fighting for those who struggle to find their voice. She taught me the importance of campaigning against tyranny and racism, wherever it is found, and every day I seek to be more like her.
Noble Lords may be aware that I was formerly a Member of the other place. It was a privilege to represent the people of north Staffordshire. I am sure that I will bore many noble Lords on the importance of ceramics and the history of my adopted city, as it is also where I met my wonderful partner Gareth and his brilliant daughter Hannah. It is my city that anchors me and which I love, but that does not mean I am not aware of our challenges. My great city—like so many others across the Midlands—needs help as we grow beyond our industrial heritage.
Today’s debate is therefore timely, as we discuss and consider how we rebalance the economy of our country so that the postcode of your birth is not an impediment to your future. There can be no greater aspiration for our country than to ensure that opportunity exists for everybody, that access to culture, education and housing is freely available, that incomes are not an accident of geography and that people can thrive in the communities in which they were born.
I am proud to live in one of the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent, but the latest statistics available from the Department for Work and Pensions state that 53% of the children in my town of Tunstall are living in relative poverty and that over 20,000 children are in the same position across the city. These statistics were collated prior to the current cost of living crisis and will today be significantly worse.
As my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage stated in her opening remarks, levelling up must be about people. It cannot and must not be just about investment in buildings. In Stoke-on-Trent, much like our country, our people are our greatest asset. It is investment in those people and their life chances that will change the lives of the people of north Staffordshire and many of our former industrial heartlands. When colleges are having to buy shoes for their young learners, when hunger is a distraction in the classroom and when a day’s childcare costs more than a day’s wages, we cannot hope to level up anything.
Across our country, our towns and cities know what they need to bring success and opportunity, but too often they are forced to compete with their neighbours for tightly controlled short-term funding. If we are to level up our country and give places such as Stoke-on-Trent the tools and resources they need to benefit their residents, we should be encouraging co-operation, not competition. Levelling up will succeed when it is something that is not done to buildings for photo opportunities but is done with local people to address and eradicate the social ills which hold them back.
At its heart, levelling up has to be able to give everyone who wants it a chance to make a life for themselves and their family, in which secure employment provides a decent salary to pay the bills in a safe and thriving community. It is about people and their hopes. As my nana said, there is always someone with less than we have, and it is our duty to help them.
I am delighted to be joining your Lordships on these Benches, to fulfil our role as a revising Chamber in order to make legislation work for our great nation. I look forward to working with all of you in the months and years ahead, to deliver for my party and our country.
Jewish Community: Contribution to the UK
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Christian Matheson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If she will permit me, I will return to that issue shortly.
The UK has a long-established Jewish community: the first record of Jewish settlement dates from 1070. There was a continual Jewish presence in the country until King Edward’s Edict of Expulsion, dated 1290. Sadly, therefore, we can also date UK antisemitism from around that period. Following the expulsion, there was no Jewish community apart from those who practised secretly.
Towards the middle of the 17th century, a considerable number of Marrano merchants settled in London and formed a secret congregation. That was until the time of Oliver Cromwell, who never officially re-admitted the Jewish community. However, a small colony was identified in 1656 and allowed to remain. In 1701, Bevis Marks Synagogue opened in London. It is the oldest continually used synagogue in London. The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the main Jewish representative body, was established in 1760.
In 1837, Queen Victoria knighted Moses Haim Montefiore. Four years later, Isaac Lyon Goldsmid was made a baronet; he was the first Jew to receive a hereditary title. The first Jewish Lord Mayor of London, Sir David Salomons, was elected in 1855. That was followed by the 1858 emancipation of the Jews. On 26 July 1858, Lionel de Rothschild was finally allowed to sit in the British House of Commons when the law restricting the oath of office to Christians was changed.
Owing to the lack of anti-Jewish violence in Britain in the 19th century, it acquired a reputation for religious tolerance and attracted significant immigration from eastern Europe. Of the eastern European Jewish emigrants, 1.9 million headed to the United States and about 140,000 to Britain. Some growing antisemitism during the 1930s was counterbalanced by strong support for British Jews in their local communities, leading to events such as the battle of Cable Street, where antisemitism was strongly resisted by Jews and their neighbours. They fought it out as a united community on the street against fascist elements.
Ruth Smeeth
As my hon. Friend is touching on the battle of Cable Street, I feel that I should put on the record my pride that my grandmother spent the 48 hours in the run-up to the battle of Cable Street—she lived in the east end of London—putting razor blades into tomatoes to throw at Nazis. I take a great deal of pleasure in being able to contribute to such an important debate, because the Jewish contribution to British life has had many different forms.
Christian Matheson
That contribution has had many different and, dare I say it, honourable forms when it comes to dealing with Nazis. I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention.
As we recall the 75th anniversary of D-day and the battle of Normandy, let us remember the more than 60,000 Jews who served in the British armed forces during the second world war; they included 14,000 in the Royal Air Force and 15,000 in the Royal Navy. Some 30,000 Jews from Palestine also served in the British military. Five Jewish soldiers have won the Victoria Cross. Some 4,000 took part in the D-day landings.
Today, there are about 290,000 Jewish people in the UK across all walks of life. According to the 2011 census, British Jewry is overwhelmingly English, with only about 5,900 Jews in Scotland, 2,100 in Wales and fewer than 200 in Northern Ireland. There are just 90 or so in my constituency. I am always pleased to tell the House that that equates roughly to the size of my majority when I was first elected, in 2015, leading some of my Jewish constituents to claim, misquoting The Sun, “It was the Jews wot won it.”
The majority of Jews in England and the UK live in and around London, with almost 160,000 in London alone and a further 21,000 in Hertfordshire. As hon. Members have heard, the next most significant population is in Greater Manchester; it is a community of slightly more than 25,000.
I am particularly proud of the role that Jews played in the growth of the trade union movement and the founding of the Labour party. The Jewish community was instrumental in setting up trade unions. The “Jewish Encyclopedia” of 1906 lists 39 Jewish unions set up between 1882 and 1902. The London Jewish Bakers’ Union was created in 1905 as the International Bakers’ Union—members came from Germany, Poland, Russia and elsewhere—and continued until 1970; it was the longest lived Jewish union. Poale Zion was the forerunner of today’s Jewish Labour Movement and was one of the early affiliates to my party in its nascent years.
The Jewish community is also loyal, despite what racists may claim. Every week at the synagogue, on the Sabbath, a prayer is said for the Queen. It begins:
“Our Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Charles, Prince of Wales, and all the Royal Family. May the supreme King of kings in His mercy preserve the Queen in life, guard her and deliver her from all trouble and sorrow. May He bless and protect Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.”
As much as I used to enjoy going to the all-night Jewish bagel bakery in Brick Lane in London when I was a student years ago, it is worth recording that our national dish—fish and chips—is probably a Jewish import. It is thought that fried fish was first introduced into Britain by Jewish refugees from Portugal and Spain in the 16th century. The first fish and chip shop was opened by a Jewish immigrant, Joseph Malin, in Cleveland Street in London.
I wish to focus on two areas of Jewish life today: first, the contribution to and delivery of social policy. Reform Judaism has led policy development work on loneliness and isolation. It launched the programme with a conference in March 2018. Reform Judaism holds quarterly networking meetings with volunteers and staff to share ideas and best practice and to hear about innovative projects and practices in other communities and beyond. Inclusion and wellbeing are considered on all events, and Reform Judaism’s forthcoming conference will focus on mental health and wellbeing.
Reform communities deliver their own programmes and activities, which include many opportunities to combat loneliness and isolation. Most communities offer befriending schemes, welcoming new members and visitors to synagogue and buddying for people who might need support to join activities or services. Communities phone members at significant points of the year—Jewish holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, or at times of bereavement—and use that as a chance to foster links and bring people who might be lonely into the community.
Some communities are also able to offer transport, which can be a significant factor in social isolation. Lunch clubs, dementia cafés, afternoon teas, bereavement support groups and Jewish festivals are opportunities to bring people together and foster social links. Communities have intergenerational projects such as singing with toddlers and the elderly or teams teaching older people how to use technology. Such projects are across the UK at many Reform synagogues.
The Jewish Leadership Council has promoted social care activities undertaken by ex-members who work with the most vulnerable in society and create an environment in which the elderly in the Jewish community can live independently where appropriate.
Ruth Smeeth
Many different forms of support are given to the elderly within the Jewish community, primarily provided by Jewish Care, among others. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that the day centre in Hendon, which focuses on holocaust survivors in their final days, is a wonderful addition that would not be provided by the state? That shows the value of organisations such as Jewish Care.
Christian Matheson
I am most grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. There is a strong culture of supporting the family and others within the Jewish community, but anything that helps to support holocaust survivors and also reminds us of what they and their families went through, so that we can remind future generations, is very important.
Over the past 12 months, the JLC has undertaken an elderly care review to look into all its social care organisations so that they can work with the elderly and see how, strategically as a community, they can create a cohesive and effective link between organisations and best enable them to be effective in their aims and missions.
Mitzvah Day is a body that promotes an inclusive day of social action. Its aim is to bring people together through Jewish-led social action, and its work contributes in various ways. Volunteering itself is a powerful way for people who are isolated or disconnected from others to come together. Taking part in Mitzvah Day is an easy and accessible way to join a group of volunteers to support local community projects and needs. It not only allows for volunteers to feel connected and useful, but for the beneficiaries to connect to local community volunteers and to establish friendships. Mitzvah Day has demonstrated a substantial repeat effect, with volunteers returning year on year to run Mitzvah Day projects, and with volunteers continuing to volunteer throughout the year.
The second area that I wish to look at—my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) touched on this—is community cohesion. I wish to refer specifically to the work of the Community Security Trust, which was set up to protect Jewish communities and Jewish groups from violence, attacks, intimidation and worse. The CST has spread out to use its expertise, developed over two decades, to support other community groups, including Muslim community groups who also face hatred, violence and threats.
CST co-runs several initiatives that encourage and improve community integration, including Stand Up! Education Against Discrimination, which aims to empower young people in mainstream schools to learn about and act against discrimination, racism, antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred, while developing their social responsibility in the community. The project is led by Streetwise, a partnership between CST and Maccabi GB, another membership organisation, and is supported by Tell MAMA, Kick It Out and Galop. Given a 29% rise in the number of hate crimes in 2017 in the UK, including anti-Muslim hate and antisemitism, the interactive free-of-charge workshops aim to educate young people about tolerance and social responsibility, giving them skills to counter discrimination while ensuring their personal safety.
Framed within a broad conversation about the Equality Act 2010 and British values, Stand Up! currently employs two facilitators from Jewish and Muslim backgrounds, modelling a partnership of interfaith collaboration and demonstrating how groups that are often perceived as oppositional can work together successfully. The workshop combines Streetwise’s and Maccabi GB’s experience in delivering informal personal development sessions to tens of thousands of young people in schools nationwide with expertise in monitoring and recording antisemitic, anti-Muslim, racist, and LGBT+ hate incidents of the other partner organisations: the CST, Tell MAMA, Kick It Out and Galop. The Stand Up! project launched in January 2017 and has since gone from strength to strength, delivering sessions to more than 8,000 young people, and booking sessions in 48 schools and settings to date.
The Jewish community has a great story to tell.
Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to participate in the debate under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson)—my friend and colleague—for calling the debate, and for his incredible speech, which outlined the contribution of my family and community.
It has been an interesting experience being a Jewish parliamentarian over the past three years, but I am reminded on a daily basis of the contribution that my family have made. I rarely get to say nice things about being Jewish in the United Kingdom, and typically have to say more horrible things, so perhaps the House will indulge me slightly as I tell my family story, and how we ended up here. Much of it was referenced by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester.
I am the great-granddaughter of Jewish immigrants who arrived here from Russia and Poland, fleeing pogroms. They had fled persecution, but arrived as economic migrants in the east end of London—among the more than 140,000 that my hon. Friend mentioned. My great-grandfather started a Yiddish-speaking Jewish trade union branch, which is now part of Unite the union. They had a wonderful daughter, who became my grandmother. She desperately wanted my mother and me never to know anything she got up to as a young woman and political activist, because she did not want to give us ideas.
Ruth Smeeth
It did not work out well for her or anybody.
I learned much of this history only recently, because of events that have happened. Not only was my grandmother at the battle of Cable Street, including helping with preparations for it, but she taught me my first political song. When she was eight she participated in her first political campaign, going around the streets of the east end of London campaigning for Harry Gosling: “Vote, vote, vote for Harry Gosling.” At that point the Jewish community could not afford leaflets. No community could afford them. It was all done by children singing to get the vote out on polling day. It sounds much more appealing than my get-out-the-vote operation at a general election.
My grandmother was definitely a visionary, and ahead of her time. In 1936, as well as participating in Cable Street, she took food and socks and went to meet the Jarrow marchers when they arrived in London at the end of their march. That is not something necessarily to be expected of an immigrant Jewish woman living in poverty in central London. She was definitely our matriarch and instilled in our family everything that has led me here today. When my mother was a single mum, working full time, my grandmother was my carer. On a Wednesday afternoon all the little old ladies on her council estate in the east end of London would arrive at her flat, and she would feed everyone tea. She could read and write so well that they all arrived with their letters and she did what I would now call casework for them. She was extraordinary, and because of her my mother became the boss of my hon. Friends the Member for City of Chester and for York Central (Rachael Maskell); she became a trade union deputy general secretary. I feel that between the two of them I am very much in a family.
Our story, beyond the fact that, like many in this place I am a third-generation immigrant, could be told by many different people across my community, but it gave me my values. The extraordinary women in my family participated in the history that my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester talked about. They definitely cooked a great deal, but they got me here. Many in my family also served. My great uncle Bozzy died on D-day. My grandfather fought at Monte Cassino. We are British to our core, and have never been anything other than British until recent days when being Jewish became a secondary factor. I am grateful, as are my family, that we ended up here and not in America by accident. I am grateful for everything that this country has done, and every opportunity that has been afforded to my family and all the others who arrived.
There is someone else I want to mention. I am not the first Jewish Member of Parliament for my great city. Barnett Stross was the first Jewish Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester touched on the subject of Jewish philanthropy, and it was because of Barnett Stross that we helped to rebuild Lidice after the war. My city of miners helped to rebuild another city of miners. The Jewish community has made contributions to our country at every level, whether political or community, as has every other faith and immigrant community here. We are not special. We are just part of a wonderful society that I am grateful to represent in this place.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
I begin by thanking and congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) on securing this debate. As he set out very eloquently, the Jewish community has been part of the United Kingdom for hundreds of years and is today represented in all walks of life.
There is no Jewish community of any size in my Wolverhampton South East constituency, although we do have a Jewish cemetery that was donated to the community by the Duke of Sutherland when there was nowhere proper for Jewish people who died in the city to be buried. The cemetery exists to this day. I have been working with the Board of Deputies to try to make sure that it is properly cared for and restored, because, of course, when cemeteries are no longer actively used, they can fall into disrepair.
We are here to emphasise the positives today and I concur with that, but I want to make a few remarks about the growth that we have seen in antisemitism and how I believe we need to respond to it. It affects people on the hard right of politics, and has done for a long time—it comes from people on the hard right of politics—but it is also now coming from people on the hard left. We have seen much of that in recent years, including some appalling and awful abuse directed at my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) and other Jewish MPs, both online and offline. It is simply unacceptable, it is deeply disturbing and we have to respond to it in the right way.
As someone who has been a member of the Labour party for 35 years, it is particularly disturbing for me to see antisemitism in the Labour party. We have always prided ourselves on being a party for people of all faiths and none—that is in the best of the Labour tradition—so it is very sad to see antisemitism in our party; there is no denying that it is there and has been there in recent years.
Some of it is wrapped up in a debate about the middle east and about Israel and Palestine and so on, but there is no need for it to be so. To state some obvious truths, the Israeli Prime Minister and the Israeli Government are not the same thing as Israeli society. There is an open and active debate in that country about policy, about settlements, about peace and about direction. Millions of Israeli citizens who take very contrasting views on those issues participate in that debate on a daily basis.
Ruth Smeeth
One of the most fascinating things about the debate in our party at the moment is that when we look at politics in the middle east, and specifically in Israel, my family who live in Israel campaign against Netanyahu day in, day out, and yet I am held responsible for his actions over here.
Mr McFadden
That is a very good illustration of my point. It is just the same as the fact that in this country we have a Government and a Prime Minister—perhaps a new one soon—and millions of our own citizens will disagree with the Government or the policies they pursue.
It is also the case that there are many people who care passionately about the Palestinian cause, who want to see a Palestinian state and who want to see a better deal for the Palestinian people. They can argue that case with passion and conviction, without being antisemitic. Many people do that on a daily basis. Caring about those issues does not mean that there is a need to engage in antisemitism.
We then have to ask ourselves a more difficult question. Where does this come from? What is really driving it? I believe that there is a further, wider problem, which is about an overall anti-western sentiment, which combines hostility to Israel with being anti-American, and which creates a fertile ground for the sentiments. I do not believe that that anti-western sentiment is part of the Labour tradition. It has never been part of the policy or the outlook of any Labour Government. I believe that if we really want to deal with the issue in our party and on the left, we have to reject that anti-western sentiment as well. These sentiments do not come from nowhere. We can do what we can about processes and complaints procedures and committees, but unless we are clear that our world view must not give rise to it, we will not really be able to deal with this issue.
I am disturbed by the antisemitism on the left. It is important that we stand strongly against it, that we do not accept any world view that gives rise to it, and that we state clearly that we are a party of all faiths and none. Britain’s great strength as a country is that it is a country for all faiths and none. That is why we have been a refuge for the oppressed from around the world for so many years. That is why we are recognised as such around the world.
So, there should be no hierarchy of victimhood. There should be no sense that only some people are victims of racism and other people cannot be victims of racism. We have to reject these things and appreciate that we are admired around the world precisely because we have been, for the most part, a refuge for people fleeing from persecution. We have given people a platform to build new lives. It is not a perfect story—it never is, and of course there have been times and episodes when that has not been the case—but it is largely true. Over the long arc of history, it is the story of how our society has developed up to today.
We should give thanks to the Jewish community for the contribution that has been made over hundreds of years, in all walks of life, to the United Kingdom, and resolve anew that we believe in equality and in a politics and a country that can be a good home for people of all faiths and none.
Antisemitism in Modern Society
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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James Brokenshire
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. I certainly endorse his reflections of a very poignant, very powerful and very special moment for us all, and the message that it was able to send about this country’s position and the sense of safety and security that we all want to underline.
For the third year running, the number of antisemitic incidents in the UK is sadly at an all-time high, according to the figures released this month by the Community Security Trust. This equates to 1,652 incidents last year, with over 100 incidents reported in each month for the first time in a single calendar year. The surge of antisemitism online, up 54% on 2017, is a particular area of concern, with the CST finding that almost a quarter of all reported incidents had an online association—a development that echoes the experiences of other organisations such as Tell MAMA that work to combat Islamophobia.
Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for celebrating the work of CST, which has done extraordinary work to keep many of us safe. The Government currently provide a significant proportion of funding for security guards, on a commercial basis, to support CST’s work and to keep schools safe. Has he considered making that a multi-year grant, rather than a one-year grant, to ensure that political affiliation does not matter and that the Jewish community has assurances that they will be kept safe?
James Brokenshire
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for highlighting the incredible work of the CST not simply at these memorials and annual events but week in, week out, in schools, synagogues and other places, and the safety and security it conveys in so doing. She will understand that funding decisions are quite germane, particularly given the upcoming spending review, but I understand her call for a multi-year settlement, and I will take that away and reflect on it further. This is about providing assurance and confidence, and I know the difference the CST makes in that regard.
Some of the increase in the number of antisemitic incidents will be down to increased reporting, which we encourage through our hate crime action plan. Similarly, however, a survey carried out by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights in December found that 89% of respondents felt that antisemitism had increased in their countries over the past five years. When asked how big a problem antisemitism was, three quarters of respondents from the UK answered that it was either a “very big” or a “fairly big” problem. I say that with a very heavy heart. It troubles me deeply that some Jewish communities are concerned about their future. It should trouble us all.
Barry Gardiner
Quite simply, my hon. Friend is right, and I pay tribute to the work he has done for many, many years; it is for our shadow Cabinet, as it is indeed incumbent on us all in this party, to ensure that we have the processes in place to eradicate this poison from our party. If we look at what took place in our party recently after the change in leadership, we see that the number of places on the committee concerned, the national constitutional committee, had to double to deal with the cases that were there; new processes were introduced so that we could speed up dealing with the number of cases that were there. That is the process that is going to take place, but he is right to say that it is not just about process—it is not. It is about leadership and politics, and making sure that we get the message out there into the wider society that wherever this happens it is unacceptable and will be dealt with. Yes, it will be dealt with by the proper process, but the outcomes at the end of that process must be the right ones.
Ruth Smeeth
Does my hon. Friend, to whom I am grateful for making this speech, agree that any other leader of the Labour party would have instructed people to be expelled?
Barry Gardiner
I cannot agree with my hon. Friend on that point because it is for the national executive to take that decision—
Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
I beg the indulgence of the House. I have never stood before to make a speech in the House without notes and without something explicit to say. I never thought that I would do so on an issue so important to me, because I would be so emotional about it. I beg the indulgence of the House for the next six minutes.
A year ago, I stood in this House and read out some of my greatest hits. I got huge solidarity, and lots of people, both within the Labour party and outside, stood with me and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman) as we continued our fight—a fight I never thought I would have to have inside my own party, and I promise one that I never wanted. As much as I would love to—not love; happily—share the ongoing abuse that has happened over the past 12 months, I say with respect to everybody in the Chamber that it simply is not about us. It is about the chilling effect that this is having on people outside. It is about the young women who should be joining the Labour party who no longer have a political home. It is about those young women and young men who have decided that their identity stops them getting politically involved. It is for them that we continue this fight. It is for them that I stay on my Benches, inside my party. It is for them that I will fight every single day to ensure that antisemitism is removed from my party.
I say to the leadership of my party that one antisemite is too many. It should not be the case that I or my colleagues have to mention the names of antisemites either in this Room—in this wonderful Chamber—or to the parliamentary Labour party for someone to be thrown out. I would like to report to the House that Derek Hatton has been suspended from the Labour party. It took a complaint by my friend the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), and for that to be mentioned in the House.
I am sick and tired, and my heart is breaking a little more every day, because of what I have to experience and what I have to read. I am devastated that my closest political sister in this House has been hounded out of my party, but I have a message for everybody. I will not be silenced. I am going nowhere, and they will have to take my membership card away from me, because this is too important—not for me, not for you, but for the people we represent outside.
I want to say thank you to everybody who has supported us. I want to say thank you to the CST, which has kept me safe. I want to say thank you to the police, who have kept me safe, and I want to say thank you to the Government, who have been there when my own party has not, which is shameful. But this fight continues, and it continues on behalf of is all. Everybody should grant the CST more money, and they should support and join the APPG. Now is the time not only for words, not only for things in the Chamber, but for action, because we so desperately need it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Oral Answers to Questions
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
These are extremely important matters, but may I very gently say to colleagues—on Back Benches and Front Benches alike—that we must speed up?
Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)
Since 2010, we have delivered more than 357,000 new affordable homes, including 128,000 for social rent. We are investing more than £9 billion in the affordable homes programme to support the delivery of new affordable homes.
Ruth Smeeth
The Secretary of State fails to point out that only 199 houses have been built in the past six months. Given his failure to build new housing, can we instead look at actions to deal with the 7,235 privately owned empty houses in Stoke-on-Trent?
James Brokenshire
More affordable homes have been delivered in the past seven years than in the last seven years of the last Labour Government. It is a bit rich to press us when we have delivered 217,000 completed new homes in the past year. This Government have committed £9 billion to affordable homes—the hon. Lady should reflect on that—as this issue is our priority.
Windrush
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
I can make that commitment. Every part of this Government is committed to furthering social justice, and that will be at the heart of my Department.
Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
To follow on from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), such is the chaos of our immigration system post the Windrush crisis that a gentleman called my office this morning asking whether he was going to be “Windrushed”. He arrived here from Italy in 1967 at the age of seven. What does the Home Secretary want to say to him?
Sajid Javid
First, I am sorry that the gentleman whom the hon. Lady refers to has those concerns and that anxiety. No one wants anyone to suffer in that way. I do not know if she has already passed the details to my Department, but if she does, I will certainly look at that.
Anti-Semitism
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
I am devastated that we are discussing this issue in this place. We should never have had to reach a point at which we are discussing one of the oldest hatreds and how it is back in our political discourse as a norm. However, I am proud to be supported by so many of my friends and colleagues on both sides of the House. Specifically, I stand here in awe of the bravery and strength of my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman). It is their dedication and commitment that inspire and ensure that we stand united against the politics of hate and scapegoating.
Today I find myself in the bizarre position of feeling obliged to state for the record that my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests is in fact accurate and that I have not failed to report any additional employment. Specifically, Madam Deputy Speaker, I feel I must inform you that I am not a CIA spy. I am not a Mossad agent, nor am I an MI5 operative. I can assure people who are occasionally foolish enough to google me—although I would urge Members not to; it can be unpleasant reading—that I work not for the people of Tel Aviv, but for the people of Tunstall. Those are just some of the regular anti-Semitic tropes that have become normal in my world. Let me also make clear—just in case I need to say it—that I am not, and nor have I ever been, a lizard, trans-dimensional or otherwise.
What I am, Madam Deputy Speaker, is a proud trade unionist, a Labour party activist for over 30 years, and a lifelong anti-racist. I also happen to be a British Jew. In three decades of political activism, there has never come a time when those four parts of my identity have produced any form of conflict—until now.
I used to run HOPE not hate, with the wonderful Nick Lowles. I was the Jewish community’s anti-British National party campaign co-ordinator. I first stood at a demo against the National Front when I was 12. I have spent my life campaigning against the politics of hate and extremism. I have witnessed anti-Semitism and racism from the far right—after all, that is what those people do—and, honestly, I had become desensitised to it.
Ruth Smeeth
I thank the hon. Gentleman.
Over the past two years, however, I have experienced something genuinely painful: attacks on my identity from within my own Labour family. I have been the target of a campaign of abuse, attempted bullying and intimidation from people who would dare to tell me that people like me have no place in the party of which I have been a member for over 20 years, and which I am proud to represent on these Benches. My mum was a senior trade union official; my grandad was a blacklisted steelworker who became a miner. I was born into our movement as surely as I was born into my faith. It is a movement that I have worked for, campaigned for and fought for during my entire adult life, so it was truly heart-breaking to find myself in Parliament Square just over three weeks ago, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community against the poison of anti-Semitism that is engulfing parts of my own party and wider political discourse.
If the House will indulge me, I would like to read out a small sample of what I have received on social media, but before doing so, I have to thank the dedicated team at the CST who have protected me, shielded me from as much of this abuse as possible, and worked with the police on the occasions when abuse became threats. As others have said, they should not be necessary, but personally I would be lost without them. They have also worked their way through the thousands of pieces of anti-Semitic abuse I have received to provide the following greatest hits, although I must warn the House that my fan-base has shown scant regard for appropriate parliamentary language, so I apologise in advance:
“Hang yourself you vile treacherous Zionist Tory filth. You are a cancer of humanity.”
“Ruth Smeeth is a Zionist—she has no shame—and trades on the murder of Jews by Hitler—whom the Zionists betrayed.”
“Ruth Smeeth must surely be travelling 1st class to Tel Aviv with all that slush. After all, she’s complicit in trying to bring Corbyn down.”
“First job for Jeremy Corbyn tomorrow—expel the Zionist BICOM smear hag bitch Ruth Smeeth from the Party.”
“This Ruth Smeeth bitch is Britainophobic, we need to cleanse our nation of these types.”
“#JC4PM Deselect Ruth Smeeth ASAP. Poke the pig—get all Zionist child killer scum out of Labour.”
“You are a spy! You are evil, satanic! Leave! #Labour #Corbyn.”
“Ruth you are a Zionist plant, I’m ashamed you are in Labour. Better suited to the murderous Knesset! #I Support Ken.”
“Your fellow traitor Tony Blair abolished hanging for treason. Your kind need to leave before we bring it back #Smeeth Is Filth.”
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
On behalf of all Members of the House, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend—we are enormously proud of her and everything she does for her constituents—and my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman).
Ruth Smeeth
I thank my hon. Friend.
To move on to my final piece of abuse:
“The gallows would be a fine and fitting place for this dyke piece of Yid shit to swing from.”
This is merely a snapshot, and the comments are those that I would feel comfortable—if that is the right word—to say in this place. It is a glimpse into the abuse that now seems par for the course for any Jew who has the audacity to participate in this political world.
But this is not the worst of it. There have always been racists and anti-Semites in our country, lurking on the fringes of our society—both left and right—and I dare say there always will be. What is so heartbreaking is the concerted effort in some quarters to downplay the problem. For every comment like those we have just heard, we can find 10 people ready to dismiss it—to cry “Smear”; to say that we are “weaponising” anti-Semitism.
Weaponising anti-Semitism! My family came to this country fleeing the pogroms in the 19th century. Of our relatives who stayed in Europe, none survived. We know what anti-Semitism is; we know where it leads. How dare these people suggest that we would trifle with something so dangerous, so toxic and so formative to our lives and those of our families. How dare they seek to dismiss something so heinous and reduce it to the realm of political point scoring. How dare they, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I am speaking not just for me, but for the young Jewish people I meet across the country who are beginning to fear they do not have a place. These are young people who are braver, tougher and better than I could ever be—the kind of young people who make us feel that our future is in safe hands, but right now they do not feel safe.
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ruth Smeeth
I have run out of time; I am sorry.
There is something more fundamental at stake here than any party’s policy platform or electoral performance: the right of Jewish people to participate in the politics of our country as equals. Last month we heard a plea: enough is enough. I stand here today to say that we will not be bullied out of political engagement, that we are going nowhere, and that we will stand and keep fighting until the evils of anti-Semitism are removed from our society. [Applause.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I completely understand that colleagues have been very generous and that interventions have been taken, but I am sure that colleagues will also appreciate that we are very short of time, so after the next speaker, I shall reduce the time limit to four minutes.