EU Referendum: Race Hate Crime

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Catherine West

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I absolutely agree. It is so difficult to make a complaint. I am one of those people who can relate, on a personal level, the amount of abuse that I have received. When I tried to contact the organisations concerned, I got nowhere. It is important that we think about how we can regulate that and ensure that social media companies deal with these issues responsibly and monitor the posts that are being put on their sites. It seems that most of them completely fail to do that.

There have been constant calls that we are claiming our country back. After the Brexit campaign won, the first comment from Mr Farage was, “We have got our country back”, suggesting that it had been under the control of somebody else. These are the types of irresponsible comments that feed into people not liking immigrants—the “other”. Sadly, some senior politicians who perhaps should know better did the same, including the Prime Minister, when he talked last year about the “swarm” of migrants in Europe, and they have failed, time and time again, to stop the spread of such anti-immigrant feeling.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It seems that confusion is being deliberately stoked on the definition of a refugee versus somebody exercising their right, or their former right, to freedom of movement across Europe, and other categories of non-European migration. In general, this leads to a sense that there is a lack of education about what migration actually is.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I absolutely agree with that. Very disturbingly, one of the arguments used by some leave campaigners was that the refugees who are fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria will come here as terrorists, and that, if we were to leave the European Union, they would not be able to come and somehow we would become safe. That feeds into the “anti-other”, or anti-immigrant, sentiment, and that is irresponsible.

Sadly, as of now, not a single prominent leave campaigner has uttered any condemnation of the rise of racial hatred or, better still, called for unity to heal the deeply dangerous divisions that have been created. Does the Minister agree that we now need a cross-party coalition to make sure that future campaigns on such issues are conducted according to some sort of code of conduct that ensures that we never again allow our political language to become so irresponsible?

The media have not exactly played a good role in this, either. We must consider the media and journalists who portray such politicians as colourful eccentric characters, whose outrageous comments are seen for their entertainment value and as being honest. How many times have we heard, “This person is saying it how people are saying it, and is not pretending to be something else—he is giving honest views”? That serves to legitimise their point of view.

We have heard about famous journalists who have continued with that kind of behaviour. Politicians here in the United Kingdom and in the US who encourage what I call “othering” quickly become big box office hits, especially if they are able to talk, not just unchallenged but endorsed by journalists, in a way that suggests that all Muslims are rapists, or that immigrants are sucking the NHS dry or are stealing our jobs while living on benefits. Imagine the effect on someone in an economically or socially vulnerable situation who is told on a daily basis that they are in that plight because of these immigrants who have taken everything. It is not surprising that some of those people think that the immigrants are to blame. That is why I talked about the need to eradicate poverty and provide good jobs, decent housing, education, schools and hospitals. That is so important. Can we really be surprised at some of the rhetoric and the things people have been saying when that kind of thing is perpetuated by our media?

The free hand of the print and online media to distort facts and blame entire groups of people for the troubles of our country, with almost no fear of contradiction, plays an important part in the spread of hatred, and is worrying. Certain parts of the media are complicit in the rise of bigotry and the consequent discrimination. Here, I touch on what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) referred to. It is not that suddenly one day everyone decided to become abusive. There has been a consistent level of immigrant bashing over a number of years. There was a time in this country when the Irish were bashed. Then it was the Afro-Caribbean community, then the Muslims. Now it seems like everyone is hated. That is very worrying.

This is a great country to live and work in. I am very passionate about my country, which is why I think it is so important that everyone, including all politicians across the United Kingdom get together and say, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) did, “Not in our name.” This is not what we are as a country. We are a tolerant and liberal country. I have travelled and worked in other countries, and as far as I am concerned this is the best country to live in in the world. When I see this kind of thing happening, it really disheartens me. I know that others feel the same.

Let me give as an example some of the front-page scare stories from the Daily Express, the Daily Mail and The Sun. Recently, a Daily Mail cartoon compared immigrants to vermin and conflated them with gun-wielding terrorists. Who can forget the well-known shock tactic journalist who referred to desperate and scared refugees as “cockroaches”? It is amazing that the newspapers and journalists who make an enormous amount of money from those kinds of things are able to say them again and again and get away with it completely. In fact, the journalists are paid even more by the radio stations, television companies and media to carry on peddling their hate. When did journalists forget that with freedom of speech comes responsibility? Does the Minister agree that it is now more pressing than ever that we proceed with the next stage of the Leveson inquiry, so that the press act responsibly in their treatment of minorities? A free press is great—we want that, and we want the press to cover stories, responsibilities, wrongdoing and investigative journalism, and to tell us what is going on, but some sections of our media seem to have a completely different agenda of their own.

We have a proud tradition of welcoming people from around the world, and our diversity makes us stronger. We are grateful to all those who have chosen and continue to live and work in this nation. Members of the House must pledge to stand together and unite against hatred and intolerance in our communities. We will not, and should not have to tolerate hate crime again.