Holocaust Memorial Day

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Cat Smith

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that incredibly valid and painful point with regard to social media companies. I pay tribute to her work on always challenging antisemitism wherever it raises its head, even when it can be very uncomfortable to do so. She raises topics around the way in which social media companies seem to be given a free rein and how it is so hard to remove these pieces of hate from many platforms. That is worthy of a debate in this House in its own right as a single issue.

Members of the Jewish community are on the receiving end of this hate, but today’s debate is a chance for us to acknowledge that they cannot be left to tackle this problem alone. We need to be vigilant, because the events that led to the holocaust appeared, not as a single grotesque event, but through the normalisation and mainstreaming of hatred, inequality and intolerance.

[Mr Sheerman]

I am privileged enough to have been in this place so long that, when I arrived, I knew Harold Wilson and Denis Healey. We could not find better champions against antisemitism and the ghastly things that happened during the war. They were true champions. They were great travellers, and they had a network across the world working against these wicked people and those who made apologies for them. I think we can be quite proud of our heritage in the Labour party, and I wish we could restore that reputation now.

[Cat Smith]

Absolutely; I want nothing more.

As Primo Levi said,

“we too are so dazzled by power and prestige as to forget our essential fragility. Willingly or not we come to terms with power, forgetting that we are all in the ghetto, that the ghetto is walled in, that outside the ghetto reign the lords of death, and that close by the train is waiting.”

I regret that I am not able to stay for the duration of today’s important debate, because I have committed to taking part in Holocaust Memorial Day events in my constituency this evening, as I have done for many years. But I will be catching up on the contributions made by all Members in what I know will be a powerful and essential debate.