Antisemitism in the UK

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend is quite right; members of the Jewish community do feel intimidated going into central London, particularly when the marches are happening, and that is not right and is not acceptable. No one should feel that intimidation when simply coming into the centre of our capital city. He is quite right in what he says about applying the law. There are numerous relevant laws. He mentioned displaying banners of proscribed organisations such as Hamas and now Hizb ut-Tahrir. Displaying those flags and emblems is a criminal offence and we expect the police to make arrests. Inciting racial hatred is a criminal offence. Causing someone to suffer harassment, alarm or intimidation through threatening or abusive language is a criminal offence. Causing someone to fear violence is a criminal offence. We expect the police to apply those laws not sometimes but always. They have made 600 arrests so far already, and we are meeting them on a highly regular basis, including later this week, to make sure that those laws continue to be robustly applied, not just sometimes but always, for all of the reasons my hon. Friend has just eloquently laid out.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Ind)]

Let us be clear: antisemitism, like other forms of racism, has no place in the UK or elsewhere and the perpetrators of antisemitism should face the full force of the law. Does the Minister agree that, because an accusation of antisemitism is so serious, it must not be made either lightly or casually? We must have cool heads and not label groups or communities as antisemitic, because that merely causes more division and more problems. We have to be very careful how we use this word if we want to maintain the public’s trust that people are not being falsely accused of antisemitism.

[Chris Philp]

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