Football Governance

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Elliott. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) on securing this hugely important debate.

Like football fans up and down the country, I strongly opposed the European super league proposition—not only because it contravened basic sporting principles of integrity and competition, but because it was driven entirely by the greed of a few wealthy clubs. Ultimately, sport and culture should be for everyone, not just for millionaire owners and investors to make a profit. I congratulate all football fans who made their voices heard and forced the big six into an embarrassing U-turn. That showed how sport can bring our communities together, and it was a reminder that the ultra-rich owners are merely temporary custodians of the teams that were created by working people.

Despite the increasing commercialisation of the game, football clubs—nearly all of which were forged from working-class communities—continue to provide a strong sense of belonging and civic pride to so many people in Leicester and across the UK. I support all proposals to increase fan ownership of clubs, including the 50+1 model that is successfully used in Germany to ensure that fans have majority voting rights. That can shift the balance of power away from rampant profit-seeking and back towards fan accessibility and affordability, and help to ensure that nothing like the ESL fiasco ever happens again. To that end, I fully support introducing an independent football regulator to prevent the ultra-rich owners of elite clubs from using our game as their plaything.

I am a Leicester lass, and winning the FA cup for the first time in our 137-year history was a fantastic achievement that speaks to the excellent work done by everyone associated with Leicester City football club. This sustained success provides the perfect antidote to the greed and unfairness that define the recent European super league proposals. Leicester City provides the best example of why that is an unjust model, and is an excellent case study of the need to reform the game in favour of fans and communities.

Football can of course be an immense force for good, yet the sport has a deeply unhealthy side that is in need of regulation. The appalling racist abuse of footballers online and in stadiums remains endemic. It is shameful that the Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet did not forcefully condemn the booing of England players by a small minority of so-called supporters. The Government’s tacit endorsement of such hatred gives oxygen to the far right. We must reform football in favour of the fans and the working-class communities that created the beautiful game. While we do so, we must eradicate all forms of hatred from the sport.

World Press Freedom Day

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship Ms Ghani. I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this important debate.

Press Freedom Day comes at an important time: not only have we just witnessed the bombing of the building of two major outlets—al Jazeera and Associated Press— we have also just witnessed the latest example of wide- spread misreporting on the crisis between Israel and Palestine. The systemic violence against Palestinians and the continued illegal Israeli occupation is an international atrocity. Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestine territories have been identified by the United Nations as being in breach of international law, but across the British and western media landscapes the crisis is too often reported as a conflict, yet it is not a conflict between equals. It is about the occupier and the occupied. The Gaza strip is effectively an open-air prison, with 97% of the population having no access to clean water, and each bombing campaign further eroding living standards. It is a colonial war. The British empire was instrumental in the displacement and subjugation of the Palestinian people.

The UK and western press either fail to report on atrocities against the Palestinian people, or label the abuses as clashes and consistently misreport the systemic aggression, dispossession and violence directed at Palestinians. Such framing serves only to legitimise and obscure the scale of oppression in occupied Palestine. It is encapsulated by the case of US journalist Emily Wilder, who was sacked by Associated Press after it was unearthed that she had previously supported Palestinian rights. I urge the Independent Press Standards Organisation to do much more to ensure the accurate, contextualised and fair reporting of the crisis. A strong, diverse and independent media is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy and society.

I am also concerned by the continued imprisonment and attempted extradition of Julian Assange. That case presents a real danger to the freedom of the press. It extends the judicial reach of the US Government, and it deploys the US Espionage Act against a journalist for the very first time. We must oppose this attempt to criminalise journalism that involves reporting on classified information. If not, it could set a chilling precedent with grave implications for the functioning of our democracy. I believe that the US Government must drop the attempted prosecution, and the British Government must do all they can to halt a process from which there can be no satisfactory outcome for the freedom of the press.

A free press is essential for our public life, but sadly much of our press is really not free at all. A 2019 study by the Media Reform Coalition found that just three companies—News UK, the Daily Mail group, and Reach—dominate 83% of the national newspaper market, and that has actually increased by 11% in just four years. Looking at who owns those outlets, the right-wing bias in our media ecosystem becomes clear: five billionaires own around 80% of all UK media, and two billionaire press barons own half of the UK’s top ten daily newspapers. The fact is that since 1979—a period spanning 11 general elections—no party has been able to reside in Government without the explicit backing of a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Polling shows that the British press is the least trusted press in Europe. That is corrosive for our democracy. It is crucial that we support public interest journalism, including through charitable status for some local, investigative and independent media outlets. The BBC is of course an important institution, which we must defend from privatisation, but as recent weeks have shown, the BBC is far from perfect and much must be done to make it more democratic, representative and independent. The BBC must also be wary of amplifying the world view that is shared among the right-wing press. In the light of funding cuts and the loss of investigative reporters, too often it is billionaire-owned media outlets that set the agenda for our public service broadcaster.

I fully support the National Union of Journalists and the rights and conditions of workers in our media. Empowering journalists, such as by enabling them to elect editors and have seats on boards, is beneficial for our entire public discourse. To see a world defined by the imbalance of wealth and influence propped up and obfuscated by a compliant media system is intensely disempowering. Let us take as an example yesterday’s explosive testimony from the former chief adviser to the Prime Minister. It should not have taken a disgruntled Government employee to expose this Government’s deadly handling of the coronavirus. That was a damning indictment of our media ecosystem and revealed the cosy relationship between Government and client journalists. I believe that must end. Following this year’s World Press Freedom Day, let us strive to build a vibrant media that is democratic, representative and truly independent.

Elected Women Representatives: Online Abuse

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Paisley. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this hugely important debate.

While it is an immense privilege, as a feminist I am conscious of what it means to be the first female Member of Parliament for the constituency of Leicester East in my home city of Leicester, and the first black woman elected to represent the entire county of Leicestershire. The 2019 general election had the highest number and proportion of female MPs ever recorded, yet still only 34% of the House is female. I am incredibly proud to be part of that cohort alongside many inspiring colleagues, but we cannot be complacent. We must ensure that women, women of colour and women from disadvantaged and marginalised communities feel empowered to engage in the political system. Only 35% of local councillors in England and Wales are women.

Women face unique, unacceptable challenges in political life. I have faced horrific, violent, misogynistic and racist online abuse throughout my time in Parliament and in politics. That has intensified since becoming an MP to include death threats, trolling, threats of rape and lynching, targeted far-right hate and organised attacks from the worldwide web. My perpetrators hide behind pseudonyms, and it is even more shocking when the mainstream media embolden and give oxygen to the abuse with attacks that ridicule my politics. History tells us that it does not take long for intimidation, bullying, threats and psychological violence to lead to actual physical harm or even death. They want me to be silent, but while I genuinely fear for my safety every day, I refuse to be silenced.

In 2016, a study for the Inter-Parliamentary Union of 39 countries found that 82% of the women politicians surveyed had experienced some form of psychological violence, 44% had received threats of death, rape, lynching or abduction, and 65% had been subjected to sexist remarks.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Diane Abbott) has been crucial in facing down many of the problems facing women in politics since she was elected as the first black woman MP in 1987, and she is a true giant of the feminist and activist movement. We are all indebted to her. The unprecedented level of vile racist and sexist abuse she endured as shadow Home Secretary accounted for half of all online hate directed at female MPs. That shows how much work there is left to do if we are to end the twin evils of racism and misogyny.

An analysis of tweets undertaken by Amnesty International found that in the six weeks prior to the 2017 general election, women MPs in Westminster from African, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds received 35% more abusive tweets than white women MPs, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington received 46% of all abusive tweets sent in the run-up to the election.

It is vital that the barriers to women’s representation, including the threat of or experience of violence, abuse and harassment, are removed. Diversity thrives more effectively with inclusive policy making, allowing Governments to better represent the populations they serve. Social media companies and the Government must work together to root out the online abuse that plagues the online political sphere, and that disproportionately targets women. The true identity of those who use social media platforms must be known.

When we look at the gendered and racial inequalities in the UK and across the world, we know that there has been an unacceptable breakdown of our social contract. The Women’s Budget Group found that women have shouldered a shocking 86% of the burden of austerity cuts. We face three urgent crises: coronavirus, climate change and crumbling social infrastructure. Women, particularly women of colour, are at the forefront of those crises. Only radical solutions will address the systemic gendered and racial inequalities. We need women leaders with the strength and courage to recognise that our responsibility is not to mediate an unjust system but to transform it.

Online abuse stands in the way of that future. Polling shows that women are often deterred from running for office because of abuse and harassment. We cannot accept that. The time has come for the Government to work seriously with social media giants to bring this epidemic of misogynistic abuse and violence to an end.