EU Referendum: Race Hate Crime

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I absolutely agree. It is so difficult to make a complaint. I am one of those people who can relate, on a personal level, the amount of abuse that I have received. When I tried to contact the organisations concerned, I got nowhere. It is important that we think about how we can regulate that and ensure that social media companies deal with these issues responsibly and monitor the posts that are being put on their sites. It seems that most of them completely fail to do that.

There have been constant calls that we are claiming our country back. After the Brexit campaign won, the first comment from Mr Farage was, “We have got our country back”, suggesting that it had been under the control of somebody else. These are the types of irresponsible comments that feed into people not liking immigrants—the “other”. Sadly, some senior politicians who perhaps should know better did the same, including the Prime Minister, when he talked last year about the “swarm” of migrants in Europe, and they have failed, time and time again, to stop the spread of such anti-immigrant feeling.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It seems that confusion is being deliberately stoked on the definition of a refugee versus somebody exercising their right, or their former right, to freedom of movement across Europe, and other categories of non-European migration. In general, this leads to a sense that there is a lack of education about what migration actually is.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I absolutely agree with that. Very disturbingly, one of the arguments used by some leave campaigners was that the refugees who are fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria will come here as terrorists, and that, if we were to leave the European Union, they would not be able to come and somehow we would become safe. That feeds into the “anti-other”, or anti-immigrant, sentiment, and that is irresponsible.

Sadly, as of now, not a single prominent leave campaigner has uttered any condemnation of the rise of racial hatred or, better still, called for unity to heal the deeply dangerous divisions that have been created. Does the Minister agree that we now need a cross-party coalition to make sure that future campaigns on such issues are conducted according to some sort of code of conduct that ensures that we never again allow our political language to become so irresponsible?

The media have not exactly played a good role in this, either. We must consider the media and journalists who portray such politicians as colourful eccentric characters, whose outrageous comments are seen for their entertainment value and as being honest. How many times have we heard, “This person is saying it how people are saying it, and is not pretending to be something else—he is giving honest views”? That serves to legitimise their point of view.

We have heard about famous journalists who have continued with that kind of behaviour. Politicians here in the United Kingdom and in the US who encourage what I call “othering” quickly become big box office hits, especially if they are able to talk, not just unchallenged but endorsed by journalists, in a way that suggests that all Muslims are rapists, or that immigrants are sucking the NHS dry or are stealing our jobs while living on benefits. Imagine the effect on someone in an economically or socially vulnerable situation who is told on a daily basis that they are in that plight because of these immigrants who have taken everything. It is not surprising that some of those people think that the immigrants are to blame. That is why I talked about the need to eradicate poverty and provide good jobs, decent housing, education, schools and hospitals. That is so important. Can we really be surprised at some of the rhetoric and the things people have been saying when that kind of thing is perpetuated by our media?

The free hand of the print and online media to distort facts and blame entire groups of people for the troubles of our country, with almost no fear of contradiction, plays an important part in the spread of hatred, and is worrying. Certain parts of the media are complicit in the rise of bigotry and the consequent discrimination. Here, I touch on what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) referred to. It is not that suddenly one day everyone decided to become abusive. There has been a consistent level of immigrant bashing over a number of years. There was a time in this country when the Irish were bashed. Then it was the Afro-Caribbean community, then the Muslims. Now it seems like everyone is hated. That is very worrying.

This is a great country to live and work in. I am very passionate about my country, which is why I think it is so important that everyone, including all politicians across the United Kingdom get together and say, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) did, “Not in our name.” This is not what we are as a country. We are a tolerant and liberal country. I have travelled and worked in other countries, and as far as I am concerned this is the best country to live in in the world. When I see this kind of thing happening, it really disheartens me. I know that others feel the same.

Let me give as an example some of the front-page scare stories from the Daily Express, the Daily Mail and The Sun. Recently, a Daily Mail cartoon compared immigrants to vermin and conflated them with gun-wielding terrorists. Who can forget the well-known shock tactic journalist who referred to desperate and scared refugees as “cockroaches”? It is amazing that the newspapers and journalists who make an enormous amount of money from those kinds of things are able to say them again and again and get away with it completely. In fact, the journalists are paid even more by the radio stations, television companies and media to carry on peddling their hate. When did journalists forget that with freedom of speech comes responsibility? Does the Minister agree that it is now more pressing than ever that we proceed with the next stage of the Leveson inquiry, so that the press act responsibly in their treatment of minorities? A free press is great—we want that, and we want the press to cover stories, responsibilities, wrongdoing and investigative journalism, and to tell us what is going on, but some sections of our media seem to have a completely different agenda of their own.

We have a proud tradition of welcoming people from around the world, and our diversity makes us stronger. We are grateful to all those who have chosen and continue to live and work in this nation. Members of the House must pledge to stand together and unite against hatred and intolerance in our communities. We will not, and should not have to tolerate hate crime again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi). She is a passionate advocate on behalf of the downtrodden and all those whose rights need to be exercised in this country. She had a long career outside this House as an international barrister and she has shown a passionate commitment to the cause of justice in this House, serving on the Justice Committee, the Home Affairs Committee and now the Foreign Affairs Committee. She has reminded us all of the huge contribution that has been made by the migrant community to our country.

I have to declare an interest as a first generation migrant. I arrived here from Aden in Yemen at the age of nine. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) is also my sister and we do not normally sit together in this House. We try to sit apart. Some people mistake her for my daughter—nobody thinks I am her father, which is a good thing. We are sitting together in solidarity today, because we think this is a really important issue and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East is right to raise it. We came to this country and we can remember the speech made in 1968 by Enoch Powell, which cast a shadow over a whole generation.

The good thing about this place is that when we have discussed race issues, no matter what happened in the referendum campaign and the words my hon. Friend quoted, there is an all-party consensus about the contribution of the migrant community and the diversity of Britain. As I said to the Prime Minister last week, he has constructed the most diverse Government in the history of the Conservative party, with more women and more ethnic minorities sitting in the Cabinet and the Government. Labour did the same thing when we were in office.

How do we translate the huge achievements of the migrant community and get everyone, including the media, to understand that they are a force for good? It means talking them up, but it also means that when the chips are down we defend them, support them and stand up for them. I was so pleased to hear what the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said. I have been to his constituency and I know his commitment to different communities. Northern Ireland has different issues, but he has always supported all his constituents equally, as we all do. How do we, as parliamentarians, translate that contribution and get that message across to the public? That is the problem we face.

The problem is very stark. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East, today I received a letter from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. The figures in that letter are shocking: an increase from 20 to 60 hate crime incidents every single day. The number of hate crime incidents between the day after the referendum, 24 June, and Tuesday 28 June was 232 in the Metropolitan police area alone. We do not know the figures for the rest of the country. A lot of people do not want to report these crimes: as with any crimes, including crimes against women, people do not want to report them. The figures represent the number of reported incidents only. I would imagine that the number of hate crime incidents is even greater.

[Catherine West]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a real issue around reporting such crimes, in particular in schools? Young children do not really understand what it means when another child says, “You’ve got to go home now,” and how that can be reported and linked in with police officers within the school context.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and as the former leader of a council she will know the importance of starting at a very young age. That is the impressionable age and that is where we need to begin the dialogue. That is where we need to show these positive images. We all represent constituencies with ethnic minority communities. It is important that that exposure happens at a very early stage.

The referendum polarised opinions. I, of course, voted for remain. I say of course, because under the previous Labour Government I was a Minister for Europe. There were many Ministers for Europe under the Governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. One of my jobs, when I was appointed by Tony Blair, was to go to the eastern European countries and prepare them for enlargement. His first words to me were, “Get closer to them than the French and the Germans.” I did and I travelled a lot: I made 54 visits in two years. I went to eastern Europe, having never visited before, and it was a revelation. We should say in the House how pleased we are with the contribution that eastern European communities have made to our country. People are surprised to hear that the figure is 3 million. I do not think that one can tell, because these are the hardest-working communities, they contribute in each and every constituency, and they make the lives of our citizens better.

I was shocked to hear not just about the incidents recounted by hon. Members or about the crimes committed but about how social attitudes have changed because of the referendum. It has changed not just the political make-up of our country—with so many party leaders resigning within days of the referendum—but attitudes. That is why last Sunday, with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), I went to Ealing Broadway—not Leicester but Ealing Broadway, Ealing being the centre of the Polish community in London—and sat through a Polish mass at the Church of Our Lady Mother of the Church. It was the first Polish mass I had been to since I was Minister for Europe and I went to a mass in Piekary Slaskie in Poland.

At the end of the mass, I was asked to address the congregation, and I reminded them of the great affection we all felt for the contribution made by the Polish and other communities that have come here as a result of enlargement. When I went outside, an elderly Polish gentleman came up to me and said, “I have to tell you what happened the day after the referendum. I go to an elderly persons’ lunch club. When I went in, I was told by the person who runs it that, because of the referendum vote, I was not allowed to have lunch with the other people.” If I had not heard this myself, I would not have believed it. I represent probably the most multi-racial constituency of anyone sitting here, and I have never heard such a thing from members of the British Asian community. Yet here was I, in the middle of Ealing, hearing this from an elderly Polish gentleman who had lived all his life in this country—Polish migration began at the time of the second world war.

What starts with a social attitude or a speech, whether at school—as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West)—or among the general migrant community, ends up with a hate crime and violence. That is what we need to guard against.