Antisemitism in the UK

Debate between Chris Philp and Richard Drax

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

No one today in this House, on either side, has labelled any group collectively as antisemitic. This is about individuals and their behaviour, and where individuals harass or intimidate members of the Jewish community, where they engage in antisemitism and where anyone engages in racism, we will call it out, and where it is illegal, the police will make arrests and prosecute it. This is about individual acts, which all of us I hope collectively condemn. No one is tarring an entire community at all; no one has done that on either side. This is about calling out, tackling and where appropriate prosecuting individual acts of antisemitism. They have sadly become only too frequent in recent months, and the whole House should unite in standing against that.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

There is a growing and deeply unpleasant trend of personalising protests. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) has been subjected to that recently, as have other Members of the House. Just to raise his particular case, 80 or so protesters were screaming right outside his door, with a police car between them and his house, for over two hours. The police did nothing. I personally think that is wrong, and that the police need to get a grip and start arresting these people for being intimidating. That is all it was: intimidation. It was not a lawful protest in my view. Does my right hon. Friend the Minister agree that the police are not doing enough to crack down on such appalling behaviour?

[Chris Philp]

What happened to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) at his house was completely unacceptable. It was intimidation; it was an attempt, I would suggest, to coerce a Member of Parliament and inhibit him from doing his democratically elected duty. I am sure everyone in the House would unreservedly condemn the behaviour of that mob outside my right hon. Friend’s house.

Various legal powers are relevant, including section 42 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, which gives the police the power to direct people outside a person’s house to move if they are behaving in a way that causes harassment, alarm or distress. That would clearly have applied in this case. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Security, who is in his place, and I wrote to chief constables on precisely that point on 16 February, just a few days ago, raising concerns and calling for robust action. I believe we are having a discussion on that topic in just a few days’ time. Members of Parliament at their home addresses, constituency offices and surgeries need to be protected because they are doing their democratic duty. Where people seek to intimidate them, the police need to take extremely strong action, because aggression against Members of Parliament is an act of aggression against democracy itself and in my view that makes it particularly serious.