Anti-Semitism

Lord Beith Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[John Mann]

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is struggling with elections. We may need to write our own code of conduct this year on how elections should be run and what should happen if candidates believe that things have been done that they find inappropriate. There is a void there, and it crosses all parties. The issue is not in one direction, and it goes many different ways.

The main political parties, as well as the smaller ones, have a responsibility to ensure that candidates or complainants, including those from the community, have clear guidance on what they should do, both at the time and retrospectively. I fear that the problem is becoming too big, too quickly. Some claim success, however irrelevant their participation has been in the campaign, which emboldens more extreme action and more extreme language. If we can get agreement, we should publish our own code of practice this year outside the general election cycle. There are, of course, always elections, but we should do so well in advance of the next general election. It could be launched in the run up to the next election, with a lengthy lead-in to ensure that we get it right. That could provide a significant service. Attempting to do it may move things on in what is a tricky but rather indelicate area. If we do not, it will be to the detriment of all political parties, rather nastily and viciously, in elections to come.

I next highlight football. I do so because there is a huge danger in eastern Europe that the new Nazis will coalesce under the banner of white power using football, which may become a big problem in this country. They have not yet made huge inroads here, although groups of fanatics and thugs have made small ones using the internet. Immediately before the Olympics, the 2012 football championship will be hosted by Ukraine and Poland. It could be rather difficult, as there will be many opportunities for outrageous behaviour by those who choose deliberately to offend, and it can happen quickly and easily. Through the police and Home Office, we have great knowledge and expertise in dealing with football hooliganism and extremism. We need to lend more support to Poland and Ukraine to ensure that those countries are not caught short. It is a PR disaster waiting to happen, with extremists using the opportunity to spread their propaganda and to incite people.

I was asked by the Football Association 18 months ago to chair a working group on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, with many people in the football world involved. I politely asked the FA, which has a new chief executive, to respond to the report submitted by my working group, because in the big money world of football as well as at the grass roots there is a responsibility to ensure that our most inclusive of sports is inclusive at every level. It must act when people attempt to use what I regard as our national sport to perpetrate race hatred. Football should be in the lead, so I await the Football Association’s response. It is about time that it did so, and I hope that it does so productively and positively.

I speak now about the international agenda and Europe. An increasing number of people in eastern Europe, including some politicians, are attempting to equate the holocaust and what happened in their countries with what happened in Soviet times. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and I were heavily involved, as were others here today, in what could best be described as anti-Soviet or anti-communist activities, not least with the international trade union movement and other organisations. We have a long track record in that respect. We understand what happened in Soviet times, but it is fundamentally dangerous, wrong and inaccurate to equate the two.

Equating the two provides an excuse for what happened to the Jewish community in, for example, Lithuania, where 94% of its members were murdered in a short period, and where many Lithuanians were involved in murdering their fellow nationals. It is fundamentally wrong and dangerous to equate things in that way, and we need to challenge that practice, because the more it takes hold, the more difficult things will be for Jewish communities in those countries, and the easier it will be for extremists to ride on the back of false nationalism and whip up hysteria, as has already happened, not least in the Baltic states, as people campaign against the Jewish international media conspiracy, the Jewish bankers and so forth. Those are old concepts, but they are being used in the modern media in these countries.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is of course right that there is a fundamental difference between what happened in Nazi Germany and what happened as a result of Soviet persecution of Jewish communities and discrimination against Jews. Surely, however, the problem with drawing such a distinction is that people must understand that if they tolerate anti-Semitism in any form, they are on a dangerous slope, which can lead to the events we saw in Europe and particularly in Germany.

[John Mann]

Absolutely. Our approach of being honest about the problems in our country, our Parliament and our political parties—in our own backyard—is exactly the approach that the countries I am talking about need to take if they are to come to terms with their history. That is what being part of the modern democratic world is about. These countries are now part of that world, and they need to understand their responsibilities and obligations. We should not accept lower standards from these new democracies than we do from the older democracies, including ours.

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[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

I am glad to take part in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on introducing it and on all the work that he has done on the issue. He said that Parliament stands as one. This debate demonstrates, among other things, that we stand as one in our condemnation of anti-Semitism and our determination to root it out.

All forms of racial and religious prejudice and hatred are utterly deplorable. We see it in anti-Semitism and in the persecution of Christians in Pakistan, where a Minister was recently assassinated for daring to stand up for the rights of a Christian. We see it in anti-Islamic prejudice. But there is a clear line between anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim prejudices. They have a different character, for a reason that I will explain.

Of course, there is a perfectly genuine argument to be had about religious and political views that is entirely separate from prejudice and hatred. We should always be careful when trying to deal with prejudice and hatred that we do not undermine people’s right to have genuine religious arguments about whether Islam or Christianity are sound religious beliefs, or political arguments about Israel. I speak as the chairman of Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel. There are clearly legitimate arguments to be had. If anyone is in any doubt about that, they should go to Israel and listen to the intensity of political debate in that vibrant democracy.

The problem that distinguishes anti-Semitism, although it might seem strange to say it, is that we as a nation and the western world rashly assumed for a while that we had dealt with it. We believed that we had slain the monster with the defeat of Nazism, and that we were dealing just with the dying kicks and last nervous reactions of a corpse. That was wrong. We must understand that anti-Semitism is a living and vibrant evil force that we must deal with.

Those who were victims of anti-Semitism in Soviet Russia or the darker reaches of European society knew full well even in those years that we had not slain the monster. Indeed, in many quarters of British society, high and low, even in the years immediately after the war, anti-Semitism reared its head or bubbled along just below the surface. Now we are obliged to make a new generation aware of anti-Semitism’s horrific potential as we saw it in 20th-century Europe. That, of course, is what the Holocaust Educational Trust does wonderfully. I imagine that most people here have taken part in its visits to Auschwitz-Birkenau and seen the impact on young people. When one is there, one wishes only that all young people could see it to understand what it all means.

It is worth thinking for a moment about young people’s attitudes. When anti-Semitism or a failure to appreciate its dangers arises among young people, it is worrying. At its most basic, combating anti-Semitism is about respecting each other. It is interesting how young people’s vocabulary has taken on the words “respect” and “disrespect” in ways that we in the older generation do not normally use them. But if those words are to be used, they must have meaning. A society in which mutual respect is a cherished value is a society with no room for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is challenged when mutual respect exists. When someone sees people in their company of friends or peer group being treated with disrespect because of their racial background or religious beliefs, they will challenge it in a society where mutual respect is a primary value.

We must teach generation after generation the value and importance of mutual respect. That is a particular and difficult challenge for many Muslims and Muslim leaders, who already face a challenge in dealing with the possibility that extremists will be recruited from within their communities into terrorist acts. Much work is being done to deal with that, but the problem beyond it—given the urgency of preventing the recruitment of terrorists, it is understandable that this is not always comprehended—is that there are plenty of young people who are not recruited into terrorism and who have no time for the threat to society that terrorists pose with their bombing and slaughter, who still take on too easily the agenda propagated by extremists. Their methods may differ, but the extremist message can affect their attitude towards the Jewish community. The challenge, therefore, is bigger than that of stopping the recruitment of extremists from within the Muslim community, and it is an important task.

I referred earlier to the Holocaust Educational Trust, which is one of a number of bodies that I want to commend in the context of this debate. The trust’s work is well known, but I think that people have become increasingly aware of the work of the Community Security Trust. It seems horrifying that that trust has had to become such an effective and valued organisation, simply protecting people in the Jewish community as they go about their daily lives—as they go to school, to the synagogue or to a Jewish community event. Many of us who attend events with the Jewish community have become familiar with the faces and the professions of those involved in the CST. They are a reassuring presence and are very necessary. I was struck by the earlier comments about how other communities are beginning to appreciate the value of CST’s work and to learn things from it.

We should commend others and encourage them in their work as well, such as those who have fought for free speech in our universities, against those who seek, by ban or boycott, to deny a platform for speakers, usually on the grounds that they are associated in some way with Israel. It takes courage for a young student to make a stand and campaign against that on campus. We should commend and encourage those who have engaged in such campaigns.

One area upon which I am supremely unqualified to offer guidance is that of internet abuse and hate. I am unqualified because I make relatively little use of the various forms of social networking that are now available. My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) was asked a question about the subject this morning. He defined himself as a dinosaur and offered to have a word with the questioner afterwards to discover what it was about. We know, however, what the topic under discussion is about. We have created the most open forum of debate that the world has ever seen. It is an international forum with unbelievably easy access, but poison is being injected into it in the form of direct attacks on and the identifying of individuals, general statements of hatred, and utterly false statements that are used to encourage people to form anti-Semitic and other prejudiced views.

We have to deal with those problems. We have been dealing with them, to some extent, through prosecutions, and it is good that that has been achieved. However, internet service providers will have to do a lot more to prevent the internet and social networking tools, which are of such immense value to so many people in the world, from becoming a source of terrible evil and a means by which evil is spread. I do not think that anyone who has any power to act in that field should escape from an obligation to do something about it. It is an obligation even on those who, unlike me, engage regularly with social networking. Sometimes, as in ordinary debate in any other forum, one has to challenge. When someone slips in a demonstrably false and prejudiced statement, it should not go unchallenged. Therefore, I encourage those with the means, the skills and the aptitude to participate fully in such things to pose those challenges.

One could produce many anecdotes and stories. Others in this debate have produced personal experiences of how anti-Semitism can rear its head. I do not propose to do that, because others have already done it today. I simply want us to remind ourselves that there is a continuum, which is why I intervened on the hon. Member for Bassetlaw. He was absolutely right to say that it devalues the understanding of the holocaust in Germany and, indeed, in the countries to which it was taken, such as the Baltic states, to say that what happened in Soviet Russia was the same. They were different things and involved different levels of persecution. One was mass slaughter and the other was denying people basic civil rights. Other people were being slaughtered in Soviet Russia but, in many cases, on different and rather random, horrific grounds in large numbers. The two phenomena were different.

When society allows what I have referred to as disrespect, when it allows prejudice to feature as part of its media and when it allows people to be discriminated against because of their religious belief or racial background, that is a very dangerous road. Some of us present have a direct link, through our parents in particular, to an understanding of how dreadful things were, and that knowledge must be passed to generation after generation.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)]

I shall certainly leave plenty of time for Back-Bench speakers. Indeed, I appreciate the opportunity, as a Front Bencher, to sneak in and contribute to the debate.

The debate is very timely, as a number of speakers have pointed out, and that is a tribute to the Backbench Business Committee process which I hope is fed back to the appropriate quarters.

It would not be right to go any further without giving praise and thanks to the all-party parliamentary group against anti-Semitism, in particular the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann). I welcomed the tone that he set for the debate, making it clear that anti-Semitism is a cause of deep concern, crossing party boundaries, and has prompted what I hope is the clear intention of the new Government to continue building on the foundations laid under the previous Administration and to carry forward the work commissioned by his all-party parliamentary group. I thank him for his support for my stewardship, which I fully understand is conditional upon future progress if, none the less, welcome for all that. The debate is an opportunity to demonstrate our strong and enduring commitment to tackling anti-Semitism, as a House and not just as a Government or as a set of political parties.

I will start by responding to some of the specific points raised by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, and to one or two other points. I will then set out what the Government propose to do, and provide feedback on the Government response to the report by the all-party group, which we published before Christmas.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of internet hate and, perhaps more generally, the consequences of the electronic world as it affects the print media. The Government response published in November drew attention to our work with newspaper editors and the Press Complaints Commission, which, it is fair to say, was not really conclusive. Nevertheless, a working group on online matters is run by the Press Complaints Commission. I assure hon. Members that I shall keep track of that and, where appropriate, provide a bit of impetus. It is appropriate for me to pass on the remarks made in this debate to my ministerial colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to ensure that the points raised are not lost to them.

The hon. Gentleman, and others, spoke about the problems in higher education. That point was reinforced for me when I heard a speech by the Chief Rabbi who visited the Department for Communities and Local Government and spoke powerfully about the need to tackle that issue. I share the hon. Gentleman’s commendation of the Manchester university protocols—like him, I declare an ancient interest in that university. Work needs to be done, and I will say more about that in a few minutes.

There have been three powerful pleas to deal with election campaigning, and of course, all mainstream parties signed up to rules, guidelines, advice and codes before the last election. I think that reconsideration of recent events is appropriate. I do not want to introduce an element of controversy, but perhaps a recent court case has a bearing on the issue. I want to talk to the Electoral Commission about whether progress can be made, and draw on incidents that have been raised in this debate. If hon. Members have more relevant evidence that they feel should be considered, I invite them to make it available to the Electoral Commission.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw referred to football, and the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) declared his undying love for Tottenham Hotspur—we all have our weaknesses, so I understand that. However, there is clearly something to be done in that area, and I was interested to hear the concern of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, who said that he had not received an appropriate and timely response about his work from the Football Association. I will draw his remarks to the attention of my colleagues in DCMS and perhaps there will be some air time for that. We talk about the nudge theory these days—perhaps the matter just needs a bit of a nudge. A problem exists in relation to specific incidents, events and clubs, and it should be paid proper attention.

The final point made by the hon. Gentleman that I will mention relates to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation. Subsequent to the election, the Prime Minister put on record the Government’s intention to make a donation to that foundation. No announcement has been made about the timing or the size of the donation, but the words used by the Prime Minister were “a substantial contribution”. I cannot take the matter further at the moment, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that the issue is on the agenda.

It may be possible to respond to all the points raised, but this is a Back-Bench debate, so some matters are probably best left on the record. The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr Offord) reported that the Community Security Trust headquarters is in his constituency. As he will know—I wrote to him to tell him—I visited the trust in the autumn and was extremely impressed by its work. I support the hon. Gentleman’s view that the trust makes an important contribution to tackling community tension and plays a part in developing the big society.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) asked about the future of the Prevent Violent Extremism programme. She will know that Lord Carlile is carrying out a review on behalf of the Home Office, and that reports and policies are being developed. Announcements will be made in the near future, and I assure the hon. Lady that this Government are as concerned as any other Government have been to take whatever appropriate steps are needed to guarantee the security of all citizens in the country.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I want to reinforce a point that I made earlier about the importance of actions taken to prevent terrorism and the finding of new recruits in the Muslim community. That issue should not blind us to the equal importance—at least in the long term—of ensuring that young people who have no interest in getting involved in terrorism do not absorb a too hostile and prejudiced agenda from some radical preachers, even though they may resist the urge to get involved in terrorism.

[Andrew Stunell]

My right hon. Friend asks me to draw a fine line between having unpopular opinions and committing violent, unpopular and illegal acts. I do not want to get drawn too far into that debate, but the Government and the DCLG are developing their thinking on how to promote integration in our society and tackle the alienation of all groups, even those not necessarily connected to a religion or ethnic background. Unfortunately, there are plenty of alienated young people who do not fit either of those two stereotypical models. Ensuring that we promote the integration of all into society is an important Government objective.

Reference has been made to the cross-Government working group that was set up to tackle anti-Semitism, and I will report briefly on what the group has been doing and what it proposes to do. The group meets quarterly to monitor further progress on the commitments made by Departments to tackle anti-Semitism. That work can be seen in the Government’s response document from last November, and the group ensures that those commitments are followed through. In the first instance, the working group focuses specifically on issues that are still cause for common concern. Anti-Semitism on the internet is top of that list, and we have undertaken to give regular progress reports to Parliament on that subject.

I had a meeting yesterday with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), who is the Minister with responsibility for crime prevention. We looked at how to ensure that issues of concern to the DCLG and the Home Office can be jointly taken forward, and we will do what we believe to be necessary in order to stimulate action.

Later this year there will be a second ministerial seminar to find ways of improving action and impact. It will involve colleagues from a number of Departments including the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Crown Prosecution Service. There will be representatives from the Association of Chief Police Officers and the DCLG, as well as MPs, lawyers and departmental officials. The seminar will be led by the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who is the Minister with responsibility for communications. We are pushing forward on this. We are clear that we must find ways of tackling at both national and international level anti-Semitism on the internet.

I want to pick up the point about anti-Semitism on university campuses. First, although I am sure that it was implied in many of the remarks that were made, no one actually mentioned further education, and further education colleges and campuses—