Pride Month

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Members who secured this debate today, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), and I thank her for her incredibly important contribution today and for all the work she has done and continues to do. We have heard so many powerful speeches, including that of the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), but I am extremely proud to have been in the Chamber today to listen to my great friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden). His moving and brave contribution will live long in the memory of everybody here who witnessed it and watched it today.

I worry about the division that we are seeing now in political discourse and everyday life. Division of communities leads to a breakdown of cohesion and the opportunity for hate and fear to flourish. I fear that we can see this graphically and worryingly with the rise in hate crime.

Just in Liverpool over the last few weeks, there have been a number of homophobic attacks in our town centre. The images have shocked the city and last week a demonstration took place saying that hatred and homophobia had no place in Liverpool or any other place. But if we look at events in Hungary, as has been mentioned, the fear grows that this hatred and division among communities is being encouraged and actively sown. Orbán’s decision to ban LGBT content in schools and the media is exactly where this direction of travel ends. I was delighted to see the EU’s ultimatum to cease and desist these attacks or leave the EU. I wonder whether the PM gave him a similar message when they met last month.

Education is a huge part of the solution—I know that from personal experience. An education was given to me by the likes of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton, when we worked together on his campaign to ban the abhorrent practice of conversion therapy when we found out that a local church in Anfield was offering these so-called therapies, including ritual starvation. The light that my hon. Friend and the Liverpool Echo shone on those practices in our community has increased awareness and facilitated further understanding and education, and galvanised the campaign to end them.

At Fans Supporting Food Banks, an organisation I co-founded, we work closely with the LGBTQ+ supporter groups at both Liverpool and Everton football clubs, to promote tolerance and understanding in football. The use of homophobic language was common in songs at football grounds. About six years ago, I got elected to the Liverpool FC supporters committee and I met a fantastic person in Paul Amann, who educated us all in what a member of the LGBTQ community might feel when hearing those songs in the football ground. It provided a real wake-up call and a genuine education to me personally. We worked on making grounds more inclusive, raising awareness and tackling this kind of language. I am extremely proud that we have made Liverpool football club the first club to explicitly prohibit homophobic language in the ground. It was Paul’s patience and bravery on this issue from which I learned so much and for which I admire him so much.

Education and community cohesion go hand in hand, and Pride Month does so much to achieve that. But as recent events have shown, we have so much work to do. I am proud that our party scrapped Thatcher’s appalling section 28, but there is lots of work to be done to ensure that we do not go backwards and that we work to defeat the voices of division and hatred in our communities by showing the same tolerance, understanding and education that was shown to me.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Stewart Malcolm McDonald.