Definition of Islamophobia
Wes Streeting Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the definition of Islamophobia.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to this debate and the Government for providing time for us to discuss this issue today.
On 15 March, a gunman walked into the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand and opened fire. During his killing spree there and at the Linwood Islamic Centre, 51 people were slaughtered in their place of worship for no reason other than that their killer had decided that their faith meant that they deserved to die.
Hatred against Muslims does not begin with the sound of gunfire breaking through the peaceful calm of a place of prayer. It begins with simple prejudice that can go unchecked and unchallenged in our schools, workplaces and communities. It is amplified on the pages of national newspapers. It is legitimised by political leaders who use Muslims as punchlines and bigotry as a vote winner. Just over 20 years ago, the Runnymede Trust published its seminal report, “Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All”. That it felt compelled to publish a follow-up 20 years later entitled “Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All” reflects our collective failure to listen, learn and lead.
The all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims, which I am proud to lead with the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), is determined to rise to this challenge. That is why we produced a ground-breaking report proposing a working definition of “Islamophobia” entitled “Islamophobia Defined”. We entered into this with an open mind about whether “Islamophobia” was the correct term. It was clear from the evidence we gathered, including powerful testimony from victims, that the word “Islamophobia” is widely used by Muslim communities, that it is considered to be useful and that what we are up against goes much wider than anti-Muslim hatred—it is structural, often unconscious bias. We argue:
“Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”
It is true that Islam is a religion—a set of beliefs and ideas—and that Muslims are a set of believers from many races. But racism is a social construct. As Dr Omar Khan of the Runnymede Trust has said,
“Defining Islamophobia as anti-Muslim racism properly locates the issue as one in which groups of people are ascribed negative cultural and racial attributes which can lead to a wide range of experiences, either as an unconscious bias, prejudice, direct or indirect discrimination, structural inequality or hate incidents.”
Of course, many Muslims do belong to an ethnic minority in the United Kingdom, and even those who do not—white converts, for example—experience a form of racism. As Tell MAMA, an organisation that does excellent work in recording hate crime against Muslims, told us,
“Any definition must consider how racialisation of Muslim identity means, for example, that white converts are verbally abused with racial epithets like ‘P*ki’.”
Alongside our definition, we produced a series of examples, inspired by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, to help people to understand how Islamophobia manifests itself. These are outlined clearly in our report. They include calling for, aiding, instigating or justifying the killing or harming of Muslims in the name of a racist or fascist ideology or an extremist view of religion; the tropes that Muslims suffer about entryism in politics, accusing Muslims of being more loyal to the alleged priorities of Muslims worldwide than to their own nations; and applying double standards not applied to any other group in society.
But perhaps the best examples are those we published of real acts of Islamophobia within our own country: the attempted murder of a Muslim woman and her 12-year-old daughter as “revenge” for the Parsons Green terror attack; the torture of a Muslim convert by two women in Guisborough while they shouted, “We don’t like Muslims over here,” and worse; the Muslim mother attacked for wearing a hijab on the way to collect her children from primary school in London; the so-called “punish a Muslim day” letters sent to Muslim institutions and prominent Muslim figures; the racists in Northern Ireland who left a pig’s head on the door of a mosque they had graffitied; charging motorists £1,000 more to insure their car if their name is Mohammed; conscious and unconscious bias against Muslims in the employment market, which was identified by the Social Mobility Commission; the Islamophobic abuse hurled at people who are not even Muslim because their abusers could not tell the difference between, for example, a Sikh wearing a turban and a Muslim man; and the men who tied bacon to the door handles of a mosque in Bristol.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
I commend my hon. Friend for all his hard work and leadership on this issue and for securing this important debate. As we all know, hate crime against our Muslim community has been on the rise in Britain, and it needs to be tackled by the Government and authorities. I want to highlight the hate crime against those who are perceived to be Muslim. An infamous recent example was when a hate-filled individual felt the urge to try to remove the turban of one of my Sikh guests queuing up just outside our Parliament and to shout, “Muslim, go back home.” Does my hon. Friend agree that this needs to be further explored within the “Islamophobia” definition and that it shows how we are all intertwined and need to stand together?
Wes Streeting
I strongly agree. I thank my hon. Friend for the work he does in supporting the all-party parliamentary group. I assure him that that kind of attack and that kind of prejudice is very much covered by our definition. If we cannot recognise what is under our very noses on the doorsteps of our own Parliament, how can we give Muslims up and down the country, or those who are perceived to be Muslim, the confidence that we are taking this seriously?
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
I, too, commend my hon. Friend for the leadership that he has shown on this issue. Hate crime against Muslims has risen by almost 100% since the Brexit referendum. In my constituency, which has the biggest Muslim population of any constituency in Britain, nearly 90% of my constituents have experienced Islamophobia or know someone who has. That includes bottles thrown at them, alcohol thrown at them, and people screamed at for having the temerity to wear a hijab. Surely we need a better definition of Islamophobia if we are to prosecute Islamophobia and to clamp down on its enablers in the British media.
Wes Streeting
My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. He is respected in this place for his deep knowledge of extremism issues, which is why we invited him to give evidence to our inquiry. The law already covers discrimination based on race and religion, but what we are dealing with is not just a challenge of changing laws; it is a challenge of changing hearts and minds, changing the everyday lived experiences of people in our community, and helping people to recognise and understand the challenge.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that, if we are to tackle Islamophobia and other hate crime, we must ensure that the social media companies take their responsibility seriously? Only this week, I reported to Facebook this comment by somebody following the report of a large Muslim gathering: “A pig’s head and a dozen packs of bacon should do it.” Facebook replied very quickly, saying that it did not contravene its community standards. If that does not contravene them, what does? I hope that Facebook is listening today and will reflect on this. Does my hon. Friend agree that the social media companies, and the written media, need to do much more?
Wes Streeting
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I raised this with Facebook very recently during a visit to its headquarters in Silicon Valley with the all-party parliamentary group on the fourth industrial revolution. It must be taken seriously.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work on this issue and indeed to the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who has championed it over a number of years. The Government are consulting on their online harms White Paper. In my opinion, it is not anywhere near robust enough on online hate or on the various levels of impact that social media has across society. He made a point about how we change hearts and minds. Does he agree that social media companies can play a part in that? Rather than allowing the jokes, the hatred and the assumptions about people’s race and religion to be posted, they could be far more robust not just in dealing with complaints but in their facility to take these images down. They often do not do that for days, as in the case of the Christchurch mosque killings; it took over a day to remove those images from YouTube because it was reviewing the content.
Wes Streeting
I strongly agree. I hope that that point will be taken up by Ministers as they think about this issue carefully in the course of their consultation.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
We also know that an excessive level of hatred and abuse is piled on to black and minority ethnic public figures on Facebook, including the Mayor of London, who receives a torrent of Islamophobic abuse on virtually all his pronouncements. I reinforce the point that the social media companies have to be a critical part of this. We have to change the law, but all the partners have to play a part in making it work.
Wes Streeting
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that powerful point. The Mayor of London and my right hon. Friends the Members for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) are among the many people in public life who are targeted because of racism—racism, pure and simple. It has a gendered aspect and a religious aspect, and it has to be recognised and tackled. Social media companies tell us they have the tools in place, but they are clearly not using them, and that is partly because they do not understand the prejudice that is as plain as the nose on their face.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he has done on this issue. Does he agree that we need clarity? The definition is essential. We cannot have different degrees of racism; something is either racist or not. If we start to question the fine detail of a clear, concise definition of Islamophobia, we open the door for companies like the social media platforms to question what is and is not Islamophobic, and the Government need to be much clearer and firmer on this.
Wes Streeting
Precisely. Let me make some progress on that point.
We toured the length and breadth of the country, engaging in extensive consultation with Muslim communities, academics, lawyers, police officers, public services, civil society leaders and politicians. That is why our definition already has widespread backing from more than 750 British Muslim organisations—including the Muslim Council of Britain, the Muslim Women’s Network and British Muslims for Secular Democracy—and from the First Minister of Scotland, the Mayor of London, local authorities across the country and the chair of the Government’s own working group on anti-Muslim hatred.
It is particularly disappointing to hear a noisy chorus of vocal opposition from many of the usual suspects, who are making arguments in bad faith that accuse us of trying to use the term “Islamophobia” to shut down criticism of Islam and introduce blasphemy laws by the back door. In fact, our report makes it crystal clear that our definition does not preclude criticism of Islam or Islamic theology. I am not Muslim. I do not believe that the Holy Koran is the received word of God or that the Prophet Mohammed was the seal of the prophets who I recognise from my Bible, who Jews would recognise from their Torah or who many people would fail to recognise at all because they think religious books belong in the fiction section of the local library. God, if we believe in such a thing, does not need protection from criticism. Ideas must always be subjected to debate and challenge.
The motivations of some of our critics are particularly exposed when they accuse us of pushing a definition written for us by others, including Muslim Engagement and Development and Cage—two organisations that have pointedly refused to support our definition. I would have thought it obvious by now that the right hon. Member for Broxtowe and I do not take kindly to being told what to do by anyone, let alone organisations with which we have serious disagreements.
Let me turn to some of the other concerns that have been expressed in good faith and reply in kind. Our definition does not cover sectarianism, which extends from the abuse levelled at our Home Secretary on social media by other Muslims calling him a “coconut”, through to the treatment of the Ahmadiyya community, which whom we are proud to engage through the work of our APPG. We recognise that sectarianism is a serious problem that extends beyond one religion and is worthy of separate consideration and action, just as the persecution of so-called non-believers or ex-believers is something we must consider further and separately.
Our definition does not prevent security and law enforcement agencies from recognising and fighting the threat posed to this country and other democracies by those with a warped view of Islam who carry out acts of violence and terrorism. Our definition does not prevent academics from pointing out the religious motivation behind, say, the sieges on Constantinople or the caliphate’s imposition of discriminatory taxes on Jews and Christians, just as we would discuss the role of Christianity in the crusades. Our definition does not prevent critical discussion about the conflict that can arise between conservative religious teaching and more liberal attitudes to issues such as human sexuality, the role of women, food laws, abortion and assisted dying.
While our definition cannot prevent false-flag accusations of Islamophobia to shut down reasonable debate and discussion, it does not enable such accusations. In fact, it makes it easier to deal with such behaviour. Context is everything. Our definition provides a framework for helping organisations to assess, understand and tackle real hatred, prejudice and discrimination.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an outstanding contribution to this very important discussion in this country. He raises the difficulty of terrorism, and he could also raise the very difficult issue of sexual grooming. Does he deplore and condemn the way in which this most minority of sinners who exist in every single ethnic group on the planet is being extrapolated to condemn an entire community? That is precisely what we are trying to get to grips with, through this important definition, to challenge those who take a terrible act by a small group of people and extend it to an entire ethnic group.
Wes Streeting
I wholeheartedly agree; that is exactly what we are trying to achieve. The story that is not written or told is about the faith leaders in my community who do not just know the challenge posed by hate preachers; they have physically wrestled them out of their mosques. Those are the same people who, when an act of terrorism is carried out in the name of one of the world’s great faiths, not only deplore the attack but know that they will be on the receiving end of the backlash, even though they believe their faith and the teaching of their religious text to be about peace and harmony.
Wes Streeting
I will give way one final time, and then I must draw my remarks to a conclusion.
Mike Gapes
I only intervene because he mentioned our Redbridge community and I want to pay tribute to the Redbridge Faith Forum and all the inter-faith work in Redbridge. The Muslims who are involved in that have done a fantastic job. Does he agree that inter-faith dialogue is the essence of dealing with these problems?
Wes Streeting
I wholeheartedly agree. As shown by the discussion on “Newsnight” last night between myself and a respected imam from Leicester, we can reconcile our way through some of these challenges, difficulties and tensions with mutual respect, proper public discourse and dialogue. Those of us who are on the receiving end of prejudice of one kind or another know exactly what it feels like, and we have a particular responsibility to stand alongside others who experience prejudice. That is why I am proud to lead the APPG on British Muslims as a non-Muslim and the APPG on British Jews as a non-Jew. It is not just the responsibility of Muslims to tackle Islamophobia; it is a challenge for us all.
Let me conclude with some personal observations. I have watched, with some amazement and even greater despair, the Conservative party making exactly the same mistakes over Islamophobia as my party has with antisemitism—the same miserable, inexcusable pattern of dismissal, denial and delegitimisation of serious concerns raised by prominent Muslims about racism within their ranks. My friend Baroness Warsi has stood as a brave lone voice, challenging discrimination in her party. As we recoil in horror at the deafening silence of decent people in the Conservative party about racism within their ranks, I respectfully say to some quarters of my own party: that is the same silence you demand of me on antisemitism, and it is one you will never receive.
The Prime Minister could have followed the lead of the Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, in backing this definition and left a powerful legacy to detoxify her party and improve the lives of Muslims across the country. Instead, with a remarkable lack of self-awareness and humility, the party that has so spectacularly failed British Muslims now intends to produce its own description. The party’s abject failure to understand and tackle Islamophobia within its own ranks means that it has neither the wisdom nor the credibility to do so.
Given that, just over a year ago, Ministers denied that there was a need for any definition at all, I suppose we might consider this latest development some sign of progress. But it is too slow; it is insufficient; and it will not be tolerated. British Muslims deserve better than this. As the Runnymede Trust said last year, Islamophobia remains, shamefully, a challenge for us all. It is one that we must now meet.
Several hon. Members rose—
Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
As vice-chair of the all-party group on British Muslims, I thank my colleagues, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), for applying for this hugely important debate and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it.
Truth be told, when I look across the House today, I realise this debate is not just about the definition of Islamophobia; it is also about the ever-prevalent Islamophobia across our society and in the online world peddled by the far right, leading to attacks every day on British Muslims, and the acceptable norms of prejudice passed across the dinner table and, frankly, in enclaves of the Tory party that fuel Islamophobia or allow it to be ignored.
Those watching this debate will notice that, although every other Westminster political party has accepted the APPG definition of Islamophobia, one party has not: the Conservative party, which refuses to accept the definition. Indeed, every party in Scotland, including the Conservative party, has accepted and endorsed the definition. I pay tribute to Ruth Davidson for showing great leadership on that.
I originally prepared my speech for the debate that was postponed. Sadly, I can no longer deliver that speech because, just in the last 24 hours, I have witnessed the orchestrated nature of a machine that has come out in spectacular fashion in a continued attempt to shut down the voices and experiences of ordinary British Muslims. What I say today is neither a conspiracy nor some delusional hyperbole. I am referring to the fact that the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Martin Hewitt, wrote to the Prime Minister suggesting that the APPG definition of Islamophobia creates some sort of security risk. Let me put this to bed once and for all: this is a non-legally binding working definition, which is why that assertion is simply plain stupid. It is as stupid as saying that, because we have a non-legally binding definition of antisemitism, we can no longer do foreign policy in the middle east.
I am a member of the National Police Chiefs’ Council national roundtable for race, religion and belief, which until this week was chaired by Chief Constable Jon Boutcher. He was not aware of Martin Hewitt’s letter or concerns. Furthermore, Chief Constable Ian Hopkins, the national lead on matters of policing and diversity from Greater Manchester police, did not know either, and nor did John Robins, my chief constable in West Yorkshire.
What is deeply worrying is not only that Martin Hewitt attributes concerns to his colleagues without actually speaking to them, but that the intervention suggests that the police have a disgraceful lack of understanding of hate crimes. They recognise the importance of having racism and antisemitism defined, but the intervention suggests that the police are blind to the same need for Muslims, despite the fact that year on year the police have consistently produced figures that show an increase in hate crime against Muslims.
This is not just about a Government who are failing to listen to the British Muslim communities; this is about a Government who on the eve of this debate coincidently and conveniently had a security leak from within their highest office, the office of the Prime Minister, with the serious concerns of the protection of British Muslims played out as a game on the front pages of a national newspaper. This is no longer about a political party that is institutionally Islamophobic; this is about a Government telling a section of those they govern they will not only silence their voices and ignore their legitimate fears, but define their experiences and actively shut down those trying to represent their views.
If it is down to the experiences of women to define feminism, the experiences of people of colour to define racism, the experiences of Jews to define antisemitism, and the experiences of LGBTQ+ communities to define homophobia, I say to the Secretary of State: how dare he tell British Muslims that our experiences cannot define Islamophobia. If that is not a pernicious form of racism, what is it?
For me this is much more than just rejecting the definition. It is disgraceful when the most senior Muslim woman in the Tory party, the former chair of the party, Baroness Warsi, continuously calls for an inquiry into Islamophobia, yet time and again that is completely ignored. It is despicable that the Conservative party ran a dog-whistle Islamophobic campaign against the London Mayor Sadiq Khan and still refuses to apologise. It is unacceptable that, when I called for a debate on Islamophobia in this Chamber, the Leader of the House responded with blatant othering by suggesting that this was an issue for the Foreign Office, thus saying that British Muslims are not citizens of this nation. Maybe she was taking lessons from her colleague, the Home Secretary; I do not know. It is scandalous and frankly an act of misconduct in every field of work for a male to demean women for the way they choose to dress, yet it is unapologetically acceptable for the former Foreign Secretary to describe women in burkas as “letter boxes” and “bank robbers”. It is hypocrisy of the highest order when the Conservative party’s internal complaints procedure when dealing with Islamophobes is to publicly suspend them and privately sneak them back in when it thinks nobody is watching.
While all the above could be explained as a party in denial, the leak suggests this is a party in government that is willing to orchestrate a campaign to reject the recognition of the very real and prevalent nature of Islamophobia. A line has been crossed, beyond the failure to act, to send a clear message to British Muslim communities that this Government are not serious about the safety and security of British Muslims. As a British Muslim woman, that message is clear to me today, as it will be to those up and down this country.
In March 2018, when the right hon. Member for Broxtowe said to the Government that it was high time for there to be a proper legal definition of Islamophobia, the response from the Minister was:
“We do not accept the need for a definitive definition”.—[Official Report, 12 March 2018; Vol. 637, c. 595.]
So a year ago, the Government said they did not need a definition and today they are saying they need a definition but just not the one accepted by British Muslims. They choose to reject the definition that is rooted in the experiences of British Muslims and thus is widely accepted by over 750 Muslims institutions and organisations.
Wes Streeting
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. I can say hand on heart that she is speaking with the passion and clarity that I hear in mosques and Muslim community centres in my constituency. I heard from the Conservative Benches the comment that clearly not all Muslims agree with this definition and that is true, but I would just, through her, ask the Secretary of State to reflect on the same claims that are made by members of my own party about Jewish Voice for Labour and by other fringe groups who consistently seek to undermine the real fight against antisemitism. I am not talking about Members of this House who disagree; I am talking about fringe siren voices. Do not mistake the views of a minority with the views of the majority.
Naz Shah
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and he is absolutely right. The truth is that the Conservative party refuses to accept the definition accepted by over 750 Muslim institutions and organisations from across the spectrum, spanning from the Muslim Council of Britain, the largest umbrella body for British Muslims, to prominent Muslim women groups such as the Muslim Women’s Network, to British Muslims for Secular Democracy, and that is in addition to 80 academics, some of whose life’s work has been on racism.
In the spirit of speaking about freedoms, let me turn the Secretary of State’s attention to article 3 of the universal declaration of human rights:
“everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of a person”.
So I ask him: when Mohammed Saleem was murdered in 2013 in an Islamophobic terrorist attack, where was his freedom? Where was his right to life? Where was the national response from the Government? Where were the advisers forming a definition of Islamophobia?
When Mushin Ahmed, an 81-year-old grandfather from Rotherham, was murdered in 2015 in an Islamophobic terrorist attack, where was the Government response to his murder? In fact, never mind the Government not forming any sort of strategy to tackle Islamophobia: after his right to life was denied—after the duty to protect a Muslim grandfather was failed—where was the Government statement? Where was the Cobra meeting? Why was there no taskforce? Why have this Government failed to act while Islamophobia has continued to rise and rise and rise? It then took the third far-right Islamophobic attack, the mowing down of Makram Ali outside Finsbury park in Ramadan 2017, for the Government to finally acknowledge that this was terrorism.
I make no apologies for my emotions today. It has only been two months since we saw the deadly attacks in Christchurch, where over 50 Muslims were murdered at their place of worship. I do not want to personalise this debate, but I think it is important to give examples to illustrate the problem. These are just a handful of comments directed towards me—the ones I could read without crying. Beyond that, Muslims receive such abuse every single day as they go about their lives: “String her up”; “I will do time for you”; “I hope you see your children dead in your arms”; and “You don’t deserve life...You are pure evil and your clock is ticking.”
Lives have been lost, globally and in the UK, and only now has the Islamophobia debate got to this stage —and even then through a Backbench Business debate. If we do not act today, I ask which Muslim’s life must go next before we simply recognise and understand Islamophobia. Never before have I shared this openly, but I do question, as many Muslims across this country do, which Muslim’s life will be next and whether it will be mine.
So I ask the Secretary of State and the Government to rethink their decision. It is high time we accepted this definition and moved forward to actually tackle Islamophobia. For those of privilege, a definition—or no definition—is just semantics, but for British Muslims, it is about their safety, the security of their lives and the fear of their sisters’ hijabs being pulled off on the streets. It is about their places of worship being attacked while they pray; it is about being denied a job because of their Muslim-sounding name and struggling to make ends meet; and it is about their right to be equal citizens because of the faith they belong to.
I have also discussed this matter at length with the Foreign Office Minister, Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon. As well as being the Prime Minister’s special representative on freedom of religion and belief, he is one of the most senior members of the British Ahmadiyya community. He agrees with the term “Islamophobia” and believes that this definition protects the Ahmadiyya community. What better assurance could the Government want than that? I share this because, when speaking to various Ministers from the Home Office, one of the concerns raised has been the issue of the definition not dealing with sectarianism. I put it to the Minister that, if sectarianism is something that this Government want to address, we can convene a roundtable with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, representatives of ultra-orthodox and liberal Jewry, the plethora of sects and castes within the British Hindu community and representatives of various Muslim sects and other religions to ensure that we consider the issue of sectarianism in its totality. Surely the Secretary of State is not suggesting that the Government are only interested in sectarianism within the Muslim community, because such an exceptionalist approach would be dangerous and divisive.
To conclude, the choice of which side of history the Government choose to stand on is a choice for them, but the fight for equal protection for British Muslims will go on. Those of us, Muslim or not, who believe in equality for all will stand shoulder to shoulder with them. The Conservative party has sadly always found itself on the wrong side of history. It did so with women’s rights and with the rights of black people and of the LGBTQ+ community. Every time, it finds itself on the wrong side of history and, every time, it is my party that has to teach it what equality means. Once again today, as we see Islamophobia on the rise, we see the Conservative party failing even to acknowledge the term “Islamophobia” or give this latest form of racism a definition.
Over the past month, I have seen this Government—and those connected to them through a tangled web of think-tanks, newspapers and other ideological bedfellows —ramp up their opposition to British Muslims who are seeking a protection framework equal to those given to our fellow citizens. This has not gone unnoticed in Parliament, in our constituencies, on the streets or in the homes where a young British Muslim community feels that, under this Government, it has been forced to frame and fight its own civil rights movement. The effect of this will eventually be felt in Parliament when the Conservatives, now no longer fit to govern, feel the consequences, through the ballot box, of failing to give everyone in this country equal value and worth. If I, as a Muslim woman MP representing the largest Muslim constituency in the country, do not feel safe, how do I tell those people that they will be safe?
Wes Streeting
This has been a wide-ranging and largely thoughtful debate, but the critical thing that people will now look to us for is action. We will engage seriously with the Secretary of State, as he has engaged seriously with our arguments. Clearly, there are points of disagreement that we need to work through, not just as legislators but with communities up and down the country. I say gently, however, that as he goes about that work, he must do so with a degree of self-awareness about the Government’s position and the way that they are perceived among Muslim communities. I say with some reflection and humility from the Labour Benches, that I genuinely believe that the Government have no more credibility to define Islamophobia than the Labour party had to redefine antisemitism—that is how bad the politics of this place have sunk in the eyes of so many people up and down the country. I believe that we can and must make progress, and today’s debate has helped us start to do that with, as the Secretary of State said, some urgency.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the definition of Islamophobia.
Anti-Semitism
Wes Streeting Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Ms Abbott
I need to make some progress. I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), for Bassetlaw (John Mann), for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth), for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), for Bury South (Mr Lewis), for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) and for Dudley North (Ian Austin) on their very powerful speeches, but I think—
Ms Abbott
I think that I have to make progress.
But if we are going to frame this debate, I would like to quote from a rabbi, Rabbi Gluck, who was mentioned earlier. He happens to be a rabbi in Hackney. He said:
“Minorities, and especially the Jewish community in Europe, are the weather vane of discontent and a wider feeling of insecurity in society, as people look for easy and quick answers to their problems.”
I am sad that we are having this debate, but I am proud to represent one of the oldest Jewish communities in the country. It is my representation of that community for many decades that has shaped my strong views on anti-Semitism. As well as one of the oldest Jewish communities in the country, I have the largest community of Charedi orthodox Jewish people outside New York and, of course, Israel. I have worked with them during all my time as an MP on issues ranging from ritual slaughter to immigration, and that work has included lobbying Ministers for there to be a voluntary aided school.
I want to take the opportunity to raise just two issues that are of concern to the Charedi community, who are not often talked about in this Chamber. One is the rising level of hate crime. The Charedi Jewish—[Interruption.] The Charedi Jewish community—[Interruption.] The Charedi—[Interruption.] I think—[Interruption.]
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
This has been an extraordinary and harrowing debate, full of powerful personal experiences. The Government are taking a lot of action to combat anti-Semitism, but I want to tell Members that I will leave the Chamber today even more committed to checking that we are doing all we can and stepping it up where we can.
Many Members have thanked the Community Security Trust, which does such great work. I want to put on record our thanks to the trust. We gave it £13.4 million recently to make sure it can continue its good work.
I also thank a number of the police forces who have been so good at protecting people and making sure that they are well looked-after under this growth of anti-Semitism, which so many politicians have unfortunately been experiencing. I also thank the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies of British Jews for their work in raising awareness of anti-Semitism.
Wes Streeting
I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way and allowing me, as co-chair of the all-party group on British Jews, to pay tribute to the work of the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council. Let there be no doubt in any quarter of this Chamber that in Jewish schools, Jewish community centres and shuls in my constituency, it is the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council who speak for the vast majority of British Jews, who are horrified by what they have seen in the Labour party and who I fear will be horrified by the response from our Front Benchers to this debate today.
Amber Rudd
I totally endorse what the hon. Gentleman just said. I apologise for the fact that I cannot mention everybody who spoke so powerfully today, but I thank my Conservative colleagues for their contributions, and particularly the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who spoke so powerfully about his experience. His description of the air tightening is something that I will always remember.
However, this afternoon’s debate really belongs to the Labour party, and its Members who spoke so passionately from their own experiences and did not hold back from bravely and courageously sharing them with us. Many of us have heard about some of those, but nothing compared to hearing their personal experiences today. The sheer horror and scale of what they have had to put up with has horrified the whole House.
I particularly thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), who spoke so powerfully of her experience, and of course, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who is well known in this House for his ability to speak freely. As he rightly said, that is not always so welcome, but in this case it was completely welcome. He stands in a position of such authority because he has campaigned so long on this issue, and I say to him that yes, we all stand in solidarity with him.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) described so strongly her personal experience and her appalling description of the term “weaponising anti-Semitism”. Again, we share her view and her constituents are fortunate to have such a strong and courageous Member of Parliament. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who spoke so strongly and referred to the danger of the Facebook groups that can provide such succour and comfort when anti-Semitism is being passed around. It is important that she carefully drew that out as one of the danger areas.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) also has such a strong history of speaking out so often against anti-Semitism, and spoke of her horror that the Labour party has become a home for it. I also thank the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), who put this in such an important personal and historical context. We could have heard a pin drop when she spoke about that. Finally, the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) reinforced the horror, which we share, of people in his party getting angry with people who call out anti-Semitism rather than focusing on the people who are anti-Semitic. It is something that we all wonder at.
This has been an extraordinary and important debate. I believe that the whole House has delivered a strong message to the leader of the Labour party: take action. The leader’s words have been strong, and they have been heard again and again, but we have not seen the action that we hoped would follow. If the leader of the Labour party is in any doubt about that, I urge him to listen to the speeches that were made by the people behind him. They were powerful, emotional and harrowing speeches that were not in any way anti-Labour. Many speakers went out of their way to explain that they had joined the Labour party to combat racism and anti-Semitism. The Labour party is a noble and honourable party, and it is absolutely wrong that this corner of anti-Semitism has been allowed to flourish. He has an obligation to take action. We expect nothing less.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered anti-semitism.
Local Government Funding
Wes Streeting Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House believes that local government has severely suffered as a result of almost eight years of brutal and devastating cuts; notes with concern that the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that between 2010 and 2020 local government will have had direct funding cut by 79 per cent; is concerned that the top ten most deprived councils in England are set to see cuts higher than the national average, with nine on course for cuts more than three times higher than the national average; believes there is a risk that services and councils are reaching a financial breaking point; calls on the Government to act on the warnings of the National Audit Office and initiate a review into the funding of local government to ensure that the sector has sustainable funding for the long term and to immediately provide more resources to prevent more authorities following Conservative-run Northamptonshire into effective bankruptcy; and further calls on the Government to report to the House by Oral Statement and written report before 19 April 2018 on what steps it is taking to comply with this resolution.
The motion calls on the Government to respond to the challenges faced by local government. I want to start by paying tribute to councillors of all political persuasions and none, and to council officers and staff, who have risen to those difficult challenges over the past eight years, making really tough decisions but ones that have often sought to protect public services. As I will come on to explain, all levels of local government are now saying that the cuts have to end or local government will collapse.
I am proud of my own roots in local government, having served on Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council for 12 years before coming to this House. My wife is a Tameside councillor approaching her 19th year of service. I know the very difficult decisions that she and her colleagues continue to have to make because of the decisions taken by Members of this House and this Government.
For those without the first-hand experience, the work of local government, as the Secretary of State recently put it, may seem small in the grand scheme of things, but to consider those working at the coalface in local councils as merely cogs in a machine to make the jobs of politicians in Westminster easier is a failure to recognise the real value, the responsibility and the pride shown by our local leaders.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
In May, I will cease to be a councillor after eight years as a member of Redbridge London Borough Council. In my borough and, I suspect, every other Labour authority up for election this year, Conservative candidates will be out there attacking them for council tax increases that have been forced on them to protect public services from the savage cuts of this Tory Government. Is that not an example of the utter hypocrisy of the Conservative party: anti-cuts campaigners locally, while in this place cheering those cuts and voting them through?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady says that it is not for her to apologise, but she stands there supporting the party that brought this country to its knees economically. It was responsible for the largest, deepest recession that this country has seen for 100 years—a recession, by the way, that led to an increase in unemployment of half a million people. Go and tell them that it is a joke.
The Labour party fails to recognise the gravity of the situation that it created in this country and the legacy that it left behind. It is no exaggeration to say that thanks to Labour, our country was on the brink of bankruptcy. Had it been allowed to continue in office, had we continued down that road, all public services, including local government, would have been decimated.
Wes Streeting
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. This is obviously a rehearsal for the local election campaign.
As he knows, people on these Benches have held a mirror up to our party over the issue of anti-Semitism. The Secretary of State does not need any lectures about Islamophobia, not least given his recent experiences. However, I ask him to hold a mirror up to his party, given the disgraceful campaign in London two years ago and because of the dog-whistle politics already being seen in the London election campaign. Islamophobic material has even been shared by Conservative Members of Parliament. We all have to root out prejudice in our politics, and that includes the uncomfortable experience of holding a mirror up to our own parties and our own values.
Sajid Javid
I am not sure what that has to do with the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I am happy to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, if that is okay with you—he made the point in good faith. He is right about the importance of making sure that we all in the House, regardless of whether we are Back Benchers, Front Benchers or leaders of political parties, respect each other at all times, whether during election campaigns or not. I very much agree with him on that. I heard him speak very passionately just a couple of days ago in Parliament Square, when he rightly emphasised the point. I very much agreed with him then, too.