Far-right Violence and Online Extremism

Debate between Ben Wallace and Rushanara Ali

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

First, a good economy is certainly one of the ways we can try to make sure that people feel more empowered. We will differ about how to go about that between both sides of the House, but employment is a very good start point. When we mix and engage with people in our workplaces, we learn about people’s differences and, I hope, become stronger together. The Government have also funded—with £63 million, through the Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary—the Building a Stronger Britain Together fund, which is working with 230 community groups up and down the country to make sure that we work together better, integrate better and understand each other better.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Last Friday, the Mayor of London and I attended the East London mosque for a vigil in solidarity with the victims of the terror attack in New Zealand. As we left, an anti-Muslim hate crime attack took place in my constituency, despite what had happened. Will the Minister look at how to take far-right activism, far-right groups and the threat more seriously? For years, we have campaigned for some of those groups to be proscribed, and the Government have fallen short. I ask him to take that much more seriously, to look at making online platforms responsible for the content of what they provide and to consider the German approach of fining online companies when hate crime material—online hate propaganda—is on those sites. Without making them responsible and making them pay for what they host, we are not going to be able to tackle this appalling level of hatred against Muslims and also against other minorities.

[Mr Wallace]

I do not, and neither do the police or the intelligence services I work with, in any way miss or fail to recognise the threat from the far right. It was this Government who first proscribed a far-right, neo-Nazi group—National Action—over 18 months ago. We did that, and we have subsequently taken action against a number of people and organisers. On hate crime, which is also one of the planks we need to take away from extremists, we have funded a £1.5 million action plan. We have asked the Law Commission to review the hate crime legislation to make sure it is fit for purpose. No doubt, the Law Commission will look at hate crime in the online space as well, and I hope it can feed into the online harms White Paper that is coming soon.