Points of Order

Baroness Morgan of Cotes Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Tonight, a programme is going to be broadcast on national television—an advance screening is already taking place for Members in Committee Room 10 upstairs—that looks behind threats received online by Members of Parliament from across this House in relation to Brexit. My hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and I have co-operated with and appear in this documentary. I know we are grateful to the police and all the authorities for their responses and for the prosecutions that have been launched after those threats, but this is systematic intimidation and influencing of the votes that MPs cast in this House. Next week, we expect to have further key Brexit votes. Will you help us to ensure that this threat to our democracy and our safety is to be taken seriously and is to be challenged at all times?

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Lady both for this immensely serious point of order and for her characteristic courtesy in giving me advance notice of her intention to raise it. The short answer, though it warrants a fuller response, is that I will do everything in my power, sitting in this Chair, to uphold and champion not merely the right but the duty of every Member of this House to do what he or she thinks is right for the country. I am sorry to say that there has in recent times been a burgeoning phenomenon of people who hold a particular view, often rather an extreme one, simply not seeming to be able to imagine that anyone can legitimately hold a view that diverges from their own. This is very different from straightforward political disagreement. What seems to have happened is that people who violently disapprove of the opinion of a Member of Parliament think it is somehow proper to write in quite the most horrific and obnoxious terms, to post blogs on the matter, to tweet in the most offensive terms and in person either to threaten or, worse still, to inflict violence.

With the help of the House authorities, conscientious reporting to the police and, above all, effective action by the police, two things are obviously necessary. The first is that such people should be brought to book and made to realise that that behaviour is not acceptable. The second is that Members, as a result, should feel that proper safety net around them, to which anybody is entitled. However, the importance of free expression in voice and vote for Members of Parliament can hardly be overstated, just as it is impossible to overstate the sinister character of the threats posed to journalists to boot.

It is true that men as well as women have been threatened, but I think it legitimate and proper to point out—I think this will chime with the right hon. Lady’s experience, and certainly with that of the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and others—that women have been disproportionately targeted by chauvinist and misogynistic abusers. This is intolerable.

In dealing with this threat, we have to be clear on three fronts. First, no matter how strongly people may feel, this behaviour is wrong. Period. It is not possibly wrong or partially wrong, but wrong. Period.

Secondly—I hope this reinforces the right hon. Lady’s collective and cross-party spirit on this matter—an attack on one Member has to be viewed as an attack on us all and on our democratic principles. Someone who is not currently in the line of fire has a responsibility to realise that he or she could be at any time. An attack on or threat to the right hon. Lady is frankly an attack on and a threat to every single one of us.

Thirdly, as a result of our conscientiousness and an effective regulatory and police enforcement process, it has to be made clear to the bigots—and they are bigots; there is really no other way to describe it—that not only is their behaviour objectionable, bullying, in many cases misogynistic, and utterly immoral, but it will fail.

If the House of Commons, as one of the two Houses of Parliament and the elected House, cannot do what it thinks is right, that would be the death of democracy. None of us in this House is going to allow the bigoted extremists, who do not just disagree with a person but want to trash that person’s motives, to win. It simply must not, cannot and will not happen. I applaud the right hon. Lady and her colleagues across the House and in several different parties for their courage and persistence in speaking up and out about this matter. I wish to associate myself both with what she said and with the actions she has undertaken.