Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

That might well be true, but it indicates that there might be a problem of the police not necessarily being impartial, because they are so busy forming community relationships with mosques that they are not necessarily listening to the kind of things that are going on in mosques or whatever other institutions. I agree with the noble and right reverend Lord, but this is the point I am making: Hizb ut-Tahrir are on the streets of London shouting about Muslim armies and jihad, while the Metropolitan Police, no doubt getting some theological Islamic advice from their religious advisers, put up a post saying that jihad has a number of meanings and should not be seen in just one way and talking about personal struggle and so on.

I want to finish with the example of what good community relations are and where we might be. Amid the Southport murder-related riots, that horrible period of disruption and violence on the streets, an extraordinary film was posted on TikTok of a police officer telling counter-protesters to stash the weapons in the mosque so that they would not have to arrest anyone. The liaison officer, wearing a blue police vest, was addressing a group of men gathered outside the Darul Falah mosque in Hanley, near Stoke-on-Trent, and was appearing to give the group of young men a weapons amnesty. He spoke to the crowd, saying:

“If there are any weapons or anything like that, then what I would do is discard them at the mosque”.


The reason why I am saying that is that I just think we should not be naive. That is the most important thing. When we talk about the police liaising with religious organisations, in a period of identity politics and in a period such as the one that we are living through in 2026, we should at least pause and not assume it is all going well. I therefore welcome the attempt at saying, “Let’s know who they are talking to”. That is the important reason why I support this amendment.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister and indeed the Home Office might be forgiven for wondering why Amendment 438EA was necessary. One might have taken it for granted that, on the whole, if any important event was happening, those likely to be involved in it in the community would be consulted. However, I fear the Home Office needs to think again. We have heard already about Birmingham, where one of the largest police forces in the country speaks exclusively to the mosques. When the Maccabi fans were considering whether they would come to Birmingham, the police did not talk to the churches but, rather more importantly, they did not talk to the synagogues. If one stops to think about it, it is quite extraordinary. All that I have read and heard in this House, as well as reading in the newspapers, leads one to suppose that those considering whether those Jewish fans should be allowed to come were looking exclusively from the Muslim point of view.

The Home Office should therefore consider carefully, perhaps with the College of Policing, whether, when it comes to significant and possibly controversial events—or very controversial, as the Maccabi one was likely to be—it should tell police forces that they must find what all the local people who might be interested think about it, and take some advice. I am horrified by what happened. I entirely understand why the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, should have tabled the amendment, and the Government need to consider it with extreme care.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as one of the vice-chairs of the APPG on Counter Extremism, I support the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in these amendments. He has already referenced the Time to Act publication, which was published late last year and deals with a number of statistics that are quite startling and deserve to go on the record today. It was found that one in five voters— 21%, actually—

“say that political violence in the UK is acceptable in some conditions, and 18% would consider participating in violent protests as the state of Britain declines”.

That is a very concerning thing to read. We know that there has been a nearly 600% rise in antisemitic incidents in the UK following 7 October 2023. We also know that anti-Muslim hate has doubled over this last decade. Those are statistics that cannot be ignored. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, outlined why she finds some difficulty with these amendments, but there is recognition in the report that extremism

“is one of the primary domestic security and societal threats facing the UK”.

When the noble Baroness was detailing some examples of extremism, the noble and right reverend Lord asked why people were not prosecuted. I would argue—and I know that the noble and right reverend Lord will recognise that I have an amendment later in the day—that the glorification of terrorism needs to be much more clearly defined in law. We will come to that later in the amendments. Defeating terrorism is not just about dealing with it from a military point of view but about dealing with the narrative around those terrorist organisations—“draining the swamp”, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, would put it. We are allowing glorification to continue on the streets of our country and then not recognising that extremism will grow as a result. I hope that when we come to debate that issue, there will be a good airing of the issues around the glorification of terrorism.

The first thing we need to do in this area is to recognise that there is a problem, and then to define the problem and move on to understand it and deal with it. I very much welcome these amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman.

--- Later in debate ---

We must close this loophole and face up to the situation. As the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, said, support for terrorism should be wrong on a timeless basis. Terrorism was wrong. Terrorism is wrong. Terrorism remains wrong into the future. It is about time that the law caught up with that and implemented it to ensure that we have the most robust systems to counter terrorism through the law.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, Amendments 447, 448 and 450 could not be more different, but they seem to show two sides of the same coin.

Dealing first with Amendment 450, I entirely agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, has said. It is absolutely appalling that people should glorify terrorism in any way. We listened to some painful stories of what had happened during the Troubles. However, this is not a Northern Ireland issue. Having listened to three people from Northern Ireland, as an English woman who was formerly married to a man from County Down, now deceased, it is important to point out that this happens in the rest of the United Kingdom.

There are people in this country who support ISIS; there are people who support Hamas, and there are other groups that are not so well known that may well be supported. Whether it be the appalling acts of the IRA or the equally appalling acts of Hamas—whether the genocide is or is not does not seem relevant at the moment—there should be no glorification. I hope that the Government will listen to this, because, although it is promoted largely by those from Northern Ireland, as I have said already, it is equally applicable to the rather parts of the United Kingdom.

Looking at the other side of the coin, I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Weir. The sort of people who are going out on the streets, particularly in London, to support Palestine Action, could not be more removed from the terrorists and the people glorifying terrorism. A lot of very decent, naive—as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, called them—and, in many ways, foolish people are going out because they do not like what happens in Gaza. We get a great deal of coverage, rightly, about what is happening there. That creates a situation in which decent and very often elderly people are going along and behaving very stupidly, but they absolutely are not terrorists.

I wonder whether the Government were all that wise to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. It is an abhorrent organisation, but I really do not think it is within the ambit of terrorism as we normally understand it—but we are stuck with it because it is now the law. However, that does not mean that everybody who is foolish, naive and stupid enough to go out on the streets, very often in bad weather, to yell out rather stupid slogans are themselves terrorists. I am not sure that it brings any praise on the country, and particularly the Government, to have huge numbers of these people arrested. What on earth is going to happen to them? We look rather foolish with this, and I hope that the Government might look with considerable sympathy particularly at Amendment 447, which is the one that I would support.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I have listened to the noble and learned Baroness’s very fair presentation of the two sides of that argument. However, we cannot know, because we have no evidence, what the deeper, inner views may be of those people she referred to, who are leaving an event or a protest, or whatever. It is perfectly plausible that they may attend a demonstration but that their views are more extreme than those exhibited at the demonstration. I would therefore be a little bit cautious about not accepting that glorification is the door-opening to the more sinister motives that people can have. We know, from the extent of antisemitism that we have seen in our streets and from what is preached in mosques or liked on social media, that there is a fairly sinister trend in the glorification of terrorism.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I am very sorry, but I have not entirely understood whether the noble Baroness is disagreeing with me on Amendment 450 or Amendment 447.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

I think possibly a bit of both, but Amendment 447 is the one that I would disagree with her on more.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I find it extraordinary that glorification of terrorism can be supported in any way; it just seems abhorrent. In relation to Amendment 447, I am not entirely objecting to the police arresting people, because they may well arrest people when they are not sure, but if there be a great many people whom the police would recognise as not likely to be supporting terrorism as such, I hope that those people would be released pretty quickly from the police station.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as always, the rational logic of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has been very helpful in untangling this issue. She has summed up some of my concerns and things that I am not sure about.

The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, has brilliantly articulated her worries about the glorification of terrorism and how it normalises terrorism into everyday life. I think that is valid. She notes that this is based on little knowledge, and little knowledge can be very dangerous. Whatever one thinks about Northern Ireland —and I assure noble Lords that at this end we do not all agree—it was a bloody conflict, and it is not to be treated lightly. Those who simply reduce it to slogans in the way that was described do not know what they are talking about.

In support of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, my concern is that when we get proscription legislation wrong, we also rob the notion of terrorism of its power to shock, of its content, and the danger is that we relativise it and trivialise it. I think a huge amount of damage has been done by putting Palestine Action into the same category as Hamas or ISIS. Even though Palestine Action, as has been described, is an obnoxious or objectionable organisation and should be held to account under the law when it uses criminal damage, I do not think it is a terrorist organisation. Putting those self-indulgent OAP protesters or students into the same camp as Hizb ut-Tahrir calling for jihad or those hate preachers I quoted earlier, for example, seems misplaced. It turns what I consider to be numpty protesters into some sort of heroes in their own mind, and it has captured the imagination.

If you go to universities, you now find that people think that anyone who supports Palestine Action is a free speech warrior who we should all get up and support. They do not understand why I, as a free-speecher, am not supporting it. The problem is that they now all think that terrorism is sitting on a road and saying, “I support Palestine Action”. If only terrorism were sitting on a road and shouting, “I support Palestine Action” or wearing a badge. That is not the content of terrorism, and there is a lack of knowledge about what terrorism is. If people think those people are terrorists, we sell young generations short by them not understanding what we are up against and what the problems are. Proscribing organisations, which is a very important weapon to use in a particular way, is one thing; treating those who simply are vocal in their support of that organisation, as has happened with Palestine Action, can just mean that we conflate slogans and words with terrorist actions or violent actions and empty them of any horror.

The difficulty is that I am torn. When I hear Bob Vylan, Kneecap or those student groups shouting “Internationalise the intifada” or strutting their stuff and cosplaying their support for barbarism, it is sickening and I want something to be done. Listening to the moving speech by the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, you can see that that is what you might want to tackle. It is just that I do not think proscribing Palestine Action did that, and we are now paying the cost for having inappropriately used proscription of an organisation to devalue what we mean by terrorism.

If we no longer have young people in this country who have lived experience of terrorism—sadly, young Iranians do, for example, so let us not concentrate entirely on ourselves—they think going on a demo outside a prison fighting for the hunger strikers inside is as bad as it gets. They do not get it, but I do not think we have helped them get it either, which is why I am nervous about saying that glorification of terrorism in that context should be against the law, because we have to be very careful about what we are making illegal.