European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 (Rule of Law)

Debate between Geraint Davies and Lord Austin of Dudley

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin]

The more Labour Members interrupt, the longer it will take: I am going to make these points. The reason I have not moved is that I did not leave the Labour party to join another party; I left the Labour party to shine a spotlight on the disgrace it has become under the Leader of the Opposition’s leadership and because I regard myself as proper, decent, traditional Labour, not like the extremists who have taken over this party and are dragging it into the mud. That is the point I am going to make in this debate.

These are people—the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Chancellor—who have spent their entire time in politics working with and defending all sorts of extremists, and in some cases terrorists and antisemites. We should remember what these people said about the IRA. It might be ancient history to the Labour party’s new young recruits, but many people will never forget how they supported terrorists responsible for horrific carnage in a brutal civil war that saw people blown up in pubs and hotels and shopping centres.

A few weeks after the IRA blew up a hotel in Brighton—murdered five people at the Tory party conference—the Leader of the Opposition invited two suspected IRA terrorists to Parliament, and when the man responsible for planting that bomb was put on trial he protested outside the court. The shadow Chancellor said that

“those people involved in the armed struggle”

—people he said had used “bombs and bullets”—

should be honoured. And they have the brass neck to lecture anybody about the rule of law; what a disgrace.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand that this debate is about whether the Prime Minister obeys the rule of law, not whether Members talked to people who allegedly have broken the law; it is about whether we deliver the rule of law.