Jeremy Corbyn
Main Page: Jeremy Corbyn (Independent - Islington North)(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberEvery one of us, from our constituencies and from our daily lives, has the ability to contribute validly and constructively to the debate, as my hon. Friend has just done.
I applaud what my right hon. Friend has said. Does he not think that the Bill, were it to become law, would be the start of a very slippery slope and that we would be insisting on a kind of secularist conformity that would be damaging to the diversity of our communities, particularly constituencies of the sort that he and I have the honour to represent?
I very much agree with my hon. Friend.
Over the years we have had too many restrictions on our civil liberties for all kinds of reasons. I might as well tell the House that when I was a junior Minister in the Labour Government I nearly resigned when, after the Birmingham bombings, Roy Jenkins introduced what I regarded to be oppressive legislation relating to the containment of terrorism. He did that for constituency reasons—he was a Birmingham MP. We are all subject to pressures, but the main reason I am proud to be British is that this is a country of tolerance. Indeed, tolerance is the wrong word. I do not believe that we have the right to “tolerate” women who wear the veil or to make a judgment on them, because it is their choice. I have all kinds of choices about the way I live my life, and people have the right to have opinions about them.