Antisemitism and Other Racism in Football

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) on securing this important debate. Antisemitism, like every form of racism, is ugly, aggressive and ignorant, but also often overlooked or left out completely when we discuss racism in sport. We applaud the lead taken by Lewis Hamilton, and other national sporting icons, when taking the knee to highlight racism, and the important work of groups such as Show Racism the Red Card, and Kick It Out. But rarely a mention is given to the antisemitic chants or language that are seemingly just accepted or ignored on the terraces.

Several Members here are part of the APPG against antisemitism, and are familiar with the work of Lord John Mann and our secretariat, the Antisemitism Policy Trust, who work tirelessly to highlight the problems, and work with football clubs and other institutions to actively find solutions. Back in 2008, Lord Mann, then the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, undertook a big piece of work called, “Antisemitism in European football: a scar on the beautiful game”. He updated his report as the Government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, working with young football fans in association with the Holocaust Educational Trust. The report highlights some shocking examples: Nazi salutes; the use of swastikas; disgusting racist chants; and even the depiction of Anne Frank on some mock football cards.

While it is positive that some police forces and football clubs are striving to do better, others inexplicably turn a blind eye to this particular form of racism. Perhaps the title of David Baddiel’s book is especially relevant here: “Jews Don’t Count”. In the book, Baddiel talks about his own experiences as a lifelong football fan and gives some stark examples of the kind of language that Jewish fans like himself and his brother have heard on the terraces. The APPG visited Chelsea football club just before the pandemic, and it was reassuring to hear that there seems to be more recognition of the problem, and some determination to adopt a zero-tolerance policy. The adoption by Chelsea, and the English Premier League, of the IHRA definition was also welcomed by the APPG against antisemitism.

Debates such as this can and should prompt sports fans to be more alert, and perhaps call out those incidents when they see or hear them. However, even getting antisemitism included in anti-racist campaigns has been slow and extremely difficult. There are more examples of that in David Baddiel’s book. I have to declare an interest here, as my partner is currently directing the Channel 4 documentary version of the book, which will be shown in the autumn. The book contains many examples of the author finding it really hard to get anyone to take antisemitism as seriously as the other forms of racism that we are more familiar with in sport.

I hope that we will see more awareness of the issue, more being done to stop it and that football—and all sports—will be safe for everyone to enjoy, free from the fear or anticipation of any form of racist abuse.

Channel 4 Privatisation

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

Yesterday, Bectu, Equity, the National Union of Journalists, the Musicians’ Union and the Writers’ Guild wrote a joint letter to the Secretary of State urging her to reconsider the sale of Channel 4 and in doing so protect the jobs of thousands of freelancers and the livelihoods of at least 60 production companies. It is here I have to declare a significant personal interest, as my partner is a freelance documentary maker who, as well as working for the big streamers, such as Netflix, is currently directing a project for Channel 4. That gives me some insight into exactly what is at stake and the projects that might never have been made without the existence of this hugely important British institution.

Like many others, I was addicted to “Brookside” when growing up, but I also learned so much more about the wider world and the plight and lives of those I did not encounter in my daily life. What we watch on television has the power to change and shape our lives and to teach us about places and people we do not know, from the very funny and sometimes jaw-dropping insights brought to us by “Come Dine With Me” to the 2018 episode of “Dispatches” made by Avanti that revealed the homeless shelter residents employed by upmarket London retailers, yet unable to afford to rent a home.

As well as groundbreaking documentaries such as “For Sama” and truly global news that covers stories that others do not show us, Channel 4 and its filmmaking wing Film4 have made so many astonishing dramas and films that we all know and love. We will all have our favourites—the dramas and scripts that stay with us, whether that is “Slumdog Millionaire”, “The Favourite”, “It’s a Sin”, “White Teeth” or “Indian Summers”, and the stars whose names are now so familiar to us: Dev Patel, Olivia Colman, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jonathan Ross and Julian Clary, to name just a few.

Then there is the comedy, which has just been mentioned. It has to be worth saving the home of “Father Ted”, “The IT Crowd”, “PhoneShop”, “Stath Lets Flats” and “Drop the Dead Donkey”. I realised as a younger woman that even women could get involved in comedy—who knew? “Absolutely”, “Smack the Pony”, Mel and Sue and “Derry Girls” are all now part of our cultural heritage, reflecting the best and often the most ridiculous and eccentric parts of British life. Channel 4 has always shown us our global connections, too, and not shied away from controversy or honesty about the less proud parts of our nation’s history.

As an institution started by Mrs Thatcher, and an incredibly successful British business owned by its viewers, Channel 4 deserves our pride and our praise. As a pioneer of programming from previously overlooked or forgotten groups, whether that is bringing the Paralympics into every home, the pink triangle season or “The Undateables”, there truly is no comparable broadcaster.

The Government have looked at this idea before and changed their mind, and there is absolutely no shame in doing so again if the Secretary of State listens to the voices of creatives, content makers, advertisers, unions and the British public, who overwhelmingly say that they do not want this. This is a successful and popular business currently costing the taxpayer nothing at all, but bringing enjoyment, enrichment and employment to so many, so let us think again. We should be proud that when other companies such as Netflix are under huge financial pressure, Channel 4 is thriving. It should be preserved as something unique and influential—a showcase for Britain’s creative best.

Legacy of Jo Cox

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) and her incredibly moving maiden speech. That she won her seat on my birthday was a great birthday present.

I was not lucky enough to know Jo or to be able to call her a friend. However, she had a direct effect on my life that I would love to be able to thank her for in person. We all remember where we were when we heard the terrible news that day, the shock and disbelief, and watching the news over and over, hoping that the headline would somehow change, and desperately willing for it not to be true. A few months later, there was an announcement at the Labour party conference that one of Jo’s legacies would be to help women like me—members of the party who wanted to progress as councillors or activists, or maybe even one day follow in her footsteps and stand to be an MP. The Jo Cox women in leadership scheme was launched. I applied—at midnight on deadline day, as always—and did not expect to hear anything back, but at least I had tried.

Fast-forward a couple more months and there was a little bit of a buzz on social media: women I knew of had started to talk about checking their inboxes. It emerged that a couple of thousand women had applied for about 50 places. There was no way on earth that I was going to get one of them. So my poor mum was on the verge of calling an ambulance when she got a snotty, sobbing and totally incoherent phone call from her daughter, who had found an email from Labour Women’s Network in her spam folder with an offer of a place in the scheme. Women like me—a nobody struggling to raise my boys while working part-time as a teaching assistant and filling every other minute with running my local branch of the Labour party—do not often get breaks like that. It was my Charlie Bucket moment; I had found my golden ticket.

Jo’s gift to me was a group of women from across the UK: 55 sisters, all with different strengths, backgrounds and experiences, and all with different reasons for applying to the scheme. I have made lifelong friendships with some incredibly special women, all of whom have made an impact. We had had just two of our training sessions when the snap election was announced in 2017. I had sat with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) in a hotel bar and told her I was thinking I might practise standing as an MP in 2020 in an area that she knew well. We joked that it was never, ever in a million years possible for Canterbury to be anything other than the safest Conservative seat in England. So, with absolutely nothing to lose, I practised standing in 2017, with that brilliant group of women on my phone 24/7. Ten of those women stood for Parliament in 2017, and two of us got here: the first woman ever to represent Canterbury and the first Sikh woman ever to be elected, my hon. Friend—my great friend—the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill).

Those other women have all kept making a difference, too, in continuing to stand for Parliament and in becoming councillors, community leaders, leaders of non-governmental organisations, activists, union pioneers and women on the frontline of the public sector and the fight against the covid pandemic. They are women such as Michelle Langan, who leads the Paper Cup Project in Liverpool to help to change the lives of rough sleepers in her region; Dr Kindy Sandhu, Coventry City councillor, academic extraordinaire and activist; Caroline Penn, formidable former Brighton councillor; Dr Allison Gardner, AI ceiling breaker as a leading woman in a traditionally male strand of academia; Denise Christie, firefighter and a regional secretary of the Fire Brigades Union; Anna Smith, deputy leader of Cambridge City Council; Salma Arif, the first female British Asian health lead on Leeds City Council; and our much-missed sister Assia Shah, who we sadly lost at the end of last year while she was working as a hospital chaplain and caring for those with covid.

I wish I could read the names of all those women—not just some in the first cohort of the scheme with me, but the outstanding women I have met who continue to inspire and change lives for the better in their communities and the wider world. All of us owe our thanks to Jo not just for the incredible opportunity her legacy has given us, but for the lead she took and the work she did for humanitarian causes around the world and for the women who undoubtedly would be worse off if she had not shone a light on their needs.

I was inspired by Jo’s passionate commitment to stop Brexit and by her humanity and compassion for displaced people seeking asylum. I am certain that she would stand here today and make her views heard on the idea of sending people in boats back to direct harm. Jo talked about what we have in common, and that is something that inspires me every single day of my life. One thing I have in common with Jo is our friendship with my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), who has always been a great support—an encourager, a joker and a fantastic ally. Thanks to him for securing this debate today so that we can remember Jo and thank her for the real difference she brought to so many lives.

Elected Women Representatives: Online Abuse

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Mr Paisley, for the first time. I echo everyone else’s words in thanking the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for all that she does in this area.

Almost six years ago, on 3 June 2015, Jo Cox, our much-missed colleague, made her maiden speech. She famously said that the thing that

“surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]

I owe a lot to Jo, from a place on the leadership scheme set up in her name following her tragic murder to the courage to attempt to follow in her footsteps just a few months later. The least I can do is remember her words, and I have done so every single day—a phrase to remember before walking into a room or attending an event, which has never failed me, from the times I have talked with Brexit-voting constituents who share my frustration at the reality to meetings with Conservative parish councillors who share my love of the Kent countryside and also want to protect our green spaces. It is not difficult. We all share something and can empathise with others’ stories or their lived experiences.

Against that approach the futility of online abuse is brought into sharp relief. What a moronic and infinitely stupid waste of energy it is for someone to use their precious time to indulge in the equivalent of playground bullying on a keyboard, because they shot to fame on a reality game show or consider themselves an intellectually superior media commentator who is always right. They would be better off challenging themselves to live with Jo’s words ringing in their ears, rather than having the baying roar and constant applause of their echo chamber confirming their absolute correctness over and over again in the gladiatorial arena and narcissistic hall of mirrors that is social media.

In 2015, I met Frances Scott, the founder of 50:50 Parliament, and we became firm friends. I became the first 50:50 ambassador to the electors, as an MP. I have hosted, chaired and spoken at many great events where we ask women to stand for public elected office, but this year, for the first time, I hesitated before accepting a place on a panel. I was not completely sure that I wanted anyone to go through what everyone speaking here today goes through in the form of online abuse every day. I was not sure how honest I could be about what it takes to be bombarded with vitriol, sexism and plain spite. Spite is undoubtedly the driver of many comments not remotely related to political issues—as are basic old-fashioned sexism or racism, even when they are disguised and restyled as factional left-wing politics for the many.

Sexism online tries to close off female mouths, attempts to no-platform us, and quickly resorts to jibes about dumb blondes or skin colour. Online abuse is not simply nasty name calling. It has grown spikes and evolved into self-indulgent wordy blogs written by those who feel compelled to opine, even libellously, on personal aspects of our lives that have nothing at all to do with the work that we carry out daily. At first that may seem too ridiculous to bother with, but when it is shared by blue-tick bully boys and we have to stop our families reading it, it becomes altogether more sinister.

I urge online platforms, political parties and trolls alike to do better, clean up their platforms and membership lists and start to support women in political life, so that the experiences heard about in the debate will be a thing of the past.

Online Anonymity and Anonymous Abuse

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab) [V]]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) on securing this debate and on all the work that she is doing to raise this issue. Yet again, it is a pleasure to take part in a debate where Members across the House are working together to find solutions.

There may be genuine and valid reasons why some people need to protect their identity online—those at risk of being traced by former partners in an abusive situation, professionals such as teachers, or those whose views may put them in serious danger of harm or torture from their own Government regime. Those who do not need protection, however, are the individuals who choose to use online platforms to bully, intimidate, troll and abuse others. Of course, many people online behave like that without feeling the need to hide behind fake profiles.

Social media gives a great platform to public figures such as MPs, but the downside to having a blue tick on Twitter, especially for women, is that we experience a disproportionate amount of online abuse almost daily. My right hon. Friends the Members for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) spring to mind when I think of online abuse—and indeed, as the hon. Member for Stroud mentioned, she herself was trolled for daring to be pregnant.

I cannot speak in a debate such as this without raising the huge problem of racism on online platforms. We have all seen it in all its disgusting forms all over social media, from trolling, vile language to the use of insulting stereotypes and images. Sadly, though, some forms of racism have been overlooked and even deemed acceptable by many. Racism is not only about the colour of our skin; Islamophobia and antisemitism have shamed political parties in recent years, and the Labour party has been in the spotlight over the recent findings of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. That is, of course, deeply shameful, as is the treatment of the former MPs who felt that they had no choice but to leave this party.

While I welcome the measures put in place by the leader of my party and the general secretary and his team, many of us have been reporting online abuse by members of our party for several years—personal abuse, sometimes by those with blue ticks themselves, and abuse by party members using anonymous, fake accounts. I know who they are, and it takes only a few seconds to find the posts that they write and share which blatantly clash with the values of this political party.

One of the worst examples for me was the member who mocked up photos and memes of me dressed in the striped clothes worn by Jews in concentration camps. Other members reported his behaviour, yet nothing at all was done until he posted support for a different political party, when he was swiftly expelled. I look forward to the changes that my party and social media platforms will bring in on online abuse, and to the end of these anonymous accounts that are not verified.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

What further steps he will take to support people in the creative industries who are unable to return to work as a result of covid-19 restrictions.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

What steps he has taken to support the creative industries during the covid-19 outbreak.

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

What steps he has taken to support the creative industries during the covid-19 outbreak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Dinenage]

The Government’s world-class support package has included the self-employed income support scheme, and about two thirds of our sector have been covered by that. Then, of course, there are the very generous extensions to universal credit as well. However, we know that it is very distressing for those who have fallen between the gaps. That is why Arts Council England has made an additional £95 million of additional support available for individuals who are affected.

[Rosie Duffield]

Equity, the performers’ union, has drawn up a four-pillar plan to save the industry: providing financial support for workers, enabling the safe opening of venues, protecting vital arts infrastructure, and eliminating gaps in representation and pay. I know that the Minister has met Equity, so are the Government prepared to back its plan and save our performing arts?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I know that arts and culture is massively important in Canterbury, which she represents. In fact, it has received over £245,000 of emergency funding so far from the Arts Council. We have listened to the sector at every stage of this terrible pandemic. I meet its representatives on an almost weekly basis, from right across entertainment, arts, culture and creative industries. ACE is currently processing over 4,000 applications for more than £880 million of grant funding. We are doing absolutely everything we can to support the sector.