Anti-Semitism

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Thank you for allowing me to speak in this important debate on anti-Semitism, Ms Clark. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) not only on initiating the debate, but on giving such a fine and thoughtful speech on the whole subject. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) on all his work, not only now but in the past and in the future, on this important subject.

I should start by mentioning the fact, also noted by the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), that my party chairman is today making a major speech—she may already have made it—on Islamophobia. We should not try to divorce this hatred of different people because of their different religions. One of the problems is that in this Chamber we are, largely, talking to ourselves. We are all committed to combating anti-Semitism, so we have to reach people who are anti-Semitic and who promote those views. We have to re-educate them and bring them back to the real world so that we can participate in a proper democracy, and so that people can celebrate their religion and background without fear.

Anti-Semitism is not new; it has been around for more than 2,000 years. It is grounded in ignorance and the fact that people look different, and they celebrate a religion that is different from other people’s. Anti-Semitism is, therefore, bounded by ignorance and prejudice. We have difficulty in combating prejudice. Most people, I am afraid, are prejudiced in some shape or form, but we can make sure that we address that prejudice by ensuring that discrimination does not take place and by educating people to combat some of those natural prejudices.

I live next door to a synagogue. There is another synagogue some 200 yards up the road. My next-door neighbours on the other side are Muslims. Beyond them are Hindus, and across the road there are Catholics and people from other Christian religions in the space of a few hundred yards. We live in peace and harmony. We know that everyone should be allowed to celebrate their religion properly. I represent a constituency that has two major synagogues, and shares another on the border of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr Offord). I salute the work that all of them do.

I grew up in north-west London with many members of the Jewish faith and, although I am not Jewish, I regard myself as an honorary Jew, with many Jewish friends—people I have grown up with. I trust that we will always live in peace and harmony.

We live, however, in a time when anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic attacks are on the increase. We have to combat that in all its shapes and forms. I salute the work the Community Security Trust does to make sure that people who go to a synagogue or a Jewish school can do so safely. I commend its work in gathering information on anti-Semitism and the attacks on the Jewish community, but is it not a sad indictment in this day and age, that in this country, which regards itself as free and fair, people have to have security at their places of religion or education? I congratulate the Government on providing the funding and on supporting the necessary security, but I condemn the fact that it is necessary. Anti-Semitism is one thing that we have to constantly guard against.

Before coming to this House, I was a councillor in the London borough of Brent. Two years ago, there was an attempted firebombing in a synagogue in Brondesbury. It led to a dramatic increase in tension among all communities. That is the sort of thing that emanates as soon as we allow anti-Semitic remarks and anti-Semitism to arise. People start to attack places of worship or educational facilities, and we must not allow it to go on. I commend the London declaration and the recent Ottawa protocol, because they set out the stall by which we can help to educate people to prevent anti-Semitism from gaining further root.

We must always remember the international dimension. Hon. Members have referred to the situation with the President of Iran and in other countries, and to people who seek to deny the holocaust, who seek to deny that anti-Semitism exists, and who promote the view that Israel and people of the Jewish faith should be eliminated from the face of the earth. We have to be constantly on our guard to prevent those people from gaining any semblance of ground.

There is nothing new in this. When I was at university we had what was probably the biggest meeting at Liverpool university for many years. There was an attempt by some sections of the university to seek a ban on the then Israeli Prime Minister visiting this country. I am delighted to say that the attempts to put that proposal were roundly defeated by the broad mass of students. I commend the work done by the Union of Jewish Students across the country to ensure that there is free and fair debate in universities, but we constantly have to be on our guard. Parliamentarians and people from outside know that there are frequent attempts to boycott Israel and to boycott Israeli academics. Those attempts give rise to the facets of anti-Semitism that we seek to combat.

As is probably well known by most of my hon. Friends, I am a Tottenham Hotspur fanatic. I have a season ticket home and away. I did not realise why Tottenham Hotspur had so many attacks from fellow fans until I got my season ticket in the west stand at White Hart lane; the first time I went there was like going to shul on Sabbath. I have been to football grounds all over the country and combated attacks by opposition fans who routinely say, “Gas the Jews. Kill all the Jews. Hitler was right.” To witness that at first hand is to realise why we must always be eternally vigilant against anti-Semitism. Next week, when we honour and commemorate the 6 million Jews who were killed by the Nazis, we must always remember that those racist, anti-Semitic remarks are the tip of the iceberg. We have to combat them wherever and whenever they are made.

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the thin end of the wedge, referring, as it were, to the project in my constituency. On football, he mentioned Spurs in particular. I was struck the other day, on going to a premier league match here in London, by the fact that people supporting a rival club—although not in the club itself—were selling openly anti-Semitic and racist paraphernalia. It seems that such paraphernalia is on open sale and nothing is done about it. That is not an infrequent observation. I wonder why the authorities do not stamp down on that kind of thing, because, as the hon. Gentleman said, those small things add up—they matter.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. There has to be more foresight in the clubs and the authorities that allow that type of memorabilia to be promulgated and, therefore, accepted in broader society. One problem is that many young people go to football matches, and their views and attitudes are formed by the people they mix with and what they hear and see. We must prevent them from having the view that that sort of attitude and behaviour is acceptable.

Growing prejudice is a problem we face in society. However, when there was an attack by the English Defence League on the central mosque in Harrow, it was important that the whole community came together. Not just Muslims, not just Christians but Jews, Hindus and everyone came together to say, “The English Defence League can pack up their banners and go home. The mixed and vibrant community does not want you. We will not tolerate you. We will not tolerate intolerance.” The great thing about the society that I want to promote and see, is that when any part of the community is attacked, the whole community comes together to defend itself and does not allow intolerance to grow.

I end by borrowing a quote that sums up the debate so far: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” We can no longer turn a blind eye; we must always be intolerant of intolerance. We must always combat the snide anti-Semitic remarks. I am well aware of what my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott) went through during the general election. In many ways, I was subjected to it as well, although I did not feel it personally in the way that he did. No one should have to go through that, whether they are an MP, a representative in public life, or just going about their law-abiding business. We have to send a strong message from this place that we will not allow it to continue; we will not allow these attacks to proliferate, and we will always defend people of all walks of life and all religions.

[Katy Clark (in the Chair)]

As I said, I will start the wind-ups no later than 4.55 pm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Stunell]

I do not think I want to get there yet. I was about to say that Universities UK has established an academic freedom working group. The aim of that group is to consider how universities can best protect academic freedom, freedom of speech, freedom on campus and freedom to study under the contemporary conditions of geo-political conflict, racial and religious tension and violent extremism. The Universities UK working group will include representatives from the FE sector, so it will be very wide ranging. When the report is published, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science will respond with a ministerial statement, so we are setting store by that report and will certainly respond strongly to it. I can announce today that I am asking the cross-Government working party, which I referred to initially, to take up this issue alongside its work on anti-Semitism on the internet. Those will be the two focal points of that work.

The debate is particularly timely, with Holocaust memorial week being next week. As I have said, the Government have now published our response to the report of the all-party inquiry into anti-Semitism. We have backed that response up with facts and figures in a number of cases. As has been reported in the debate, £2 million has been allocated to pay for the security of Jewish schools in the state sector. On Monday, I shall visit North Cheshire Jewish primary school, which is in the constituency adjacent to mine. I know from my previous visits to the area that the security required there is a shock to all non-Jewish visitors, who expect a primary school to be a primary school, perhaps not with open access, but certainly with friendly, welcoming access rather than high fences and armed guards. There, in a quiet suburban neighbourhood, far away from any threat of upset or trouble, one would have thought, it has proved necessary to have such high levels of security. I think that the whole House acknowledges that it is right that Jewish faith schools should have assistance with the extra protection that they need.[Official Report, 27 January 2011, Vol. 522, c. 4MC.]

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his remarks about the security of schools and, indeed, synagogues, but will he comment on the other issue that children face when they are going to school? Often, children attending Jewish schools are targeted on public transport and in going to those schools. We must take action to stop that happening, as well as making children safe when they get to school.

[Andrew Stunell]

The announcement about security at schools is the acute side of the treatment. We also need to deal with the chronic issues, which have rightly been drawn to the attention of the House during the debate. Part of that involves understanding and assessing the problems. We reported at the end of last year that agreement had been reached for all police forces to record anti-Semitic hate crimes, and the first official anti-Semitic hate crime statistics were published on 30 November last year.

As I have said, the Government are committed to hosting a seminar later this year to ensure continued progress on tackling anti-Semitism and all other forms of hate on the internet. We certainly understand the importance of tackling anti-Semitic discourse and we supported the publication of the report entitled “Playing the Nazi Card”. We have also appointed Sir Andrew Burns as the UK envoy for post-holocaust issues. He has started work on looking at holocaust-era assets and developing an international tracing service.

We have made a public commitment to fund the Lessons from Auschwitz project for the coming financial year. We are committed to remembering the holocaust and have committed £750,000 in the form of a grant to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust for the 2011 commemorations and related educational activities. We have committed £2 million to Faith in Action, a small grants programme to support local inter-faith activity. A large number of those projects have directly involved Jewish communities across the country. More broadly, we supported inter-faith week to the tune of £200,000 in 2010.

The Government take this issue seriously; the Department takes it seriously; and I personally, as the Minister, take it seriously. I look forward to working with other engaged hon. Members on both sides of the House in the coming year to make a reality of all our wishes on this very important topic.