UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Let me make it clear, Mr Deputy Speaker, that it is not my aim to incur your displeasure and go to the bottom of the list, so I will try to limit interventions.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid) for bringing such an important debate to the Chamber today. It is unfortunate that we do not have long to debate such an important matter, but we are where we are. At the end of March, we observed the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, but that is not the only reason that this is such a timely debate. In this country, where we pride ourselves on our tolerance, we still see alarming levels of racial discrimination and hatred. Even as we implore other countries to do more to tackle racial discrimination, we ourselves must never be complacent and must always do much more.

Nowhere is this alarming racial discrimination and the disturbing lack of action to tackle it seen more clearly than in the rise of the far right in this country. We are seeing the resurgence of fascist ideologies and extremist groups that we fought off decades ago. They are now returning with the same hatred for other races, ideologies, backgrounds and religions.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Imran Hussain]

I will, but I will not take many interventions.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend for his generosity. I want to echo his words, because the Brexit debate seems to have given new groups the feeling that they can speak in racist terms. On Saturday, the North East Patriotic Front demonstrated in Newcastle. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that they were outnumbered more than 10 to one by those fighting against racism and Islamophobia. As we have seen repeatedly over the decades, every new example of the rise of the far right needs to be combated by each new generation.

[Imran Hussain]

I thank my hon. Friend. Let us as a House come together to celebrate the fact that in the face of hatred and division of any kind, we stand in unity and make sure that those who seek to divide us never ever succeed. We reaffirm that principle here today.

Just last month, the Security Service and the Met police identified far-right terrorism as a key threat to the safety of our country, with the police having stopped a number of far-right terror attacks over the past few years. The Hope Not Hate “State of Hate 2019” report echoes that, finding not only a continued rising trend in traffic to far-right websites and in followers of far-right social media accounts, but that the far right is getting younger and more extreme. I will not mince my words: we are witnessing a dangerous resurgence of Nazi ideology. When we talk about racial discrimination today, we cannot avoid that topic.

We also cannot avoid the fact that racial discrimination has been encouraged and the far right emboldened, normalised and even legitimised by the media and others who must share the blame. In very many instances, broadcasters and newspapers have given air time and column inches to those who spread hate, giving them the means to do so in the name of balanced coverage. Nothing is balanced about the far-right, extreme views of those who seek to divide us and share more with neo-Nazism than with a modern, tolerant society, so that practice must end. We must give no platform to those who spread hatred.

Furthermore, we must not just call out and shut down racism, hatred and extreme far-right fascist views where we see them, but press authorities to do much more. Right now, they are doing nowhere near what is necessary to tackle the resurgence of fascism, with a dangerous over-reliance on tip-offs or mistakes by extremists. That was demonstrated most recently in the case of National Action, which was brought down and brought to justice through the work not of agencies but of Hope Not Hate. I pay tribute to that organisation, which has a long-standing track record of fighting against racism. It continues to do that work. However, we should never be in the situation of third sector organisations doing more to combat extremism than those we should trust to keep us safe.

I have a lengthy speech but, looking at the clock, I see that time does not permit it. However, I join my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South in paying tribute to Raheem Sterling. As a House, we should come together on that, because he has made his views absolutely clear. On the way here, while I was writing my speech—a lot of which I have not been able to deliver in the debate, tragically—I saw that statement on the television. He made it clear that racism will not defeat any sportsmen, on or off the pitch. I pay tribute to him.