Business without Debate

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Friday 13th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving notice of his point of order. It is not a matter for the Chair, but he has put his point on the record. May I suggest that he takes the matter up with the Clerks, who will be able to advise him on how to pursue the matter further?

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to place on record my thanks to our solicitor Martin Howe and many others who worked very hard on this case. The implications are obviously very serious. If there are elements in the police and possibly in the Crown Prosecution Service who want Members of Parliament to be held to a different standard of account than the general public, that removes us from the normality of law in this country. I think that would be a very bad step indeed. I will take your advice, of course, and take this up with the Clerks, because our being held to a different standard would be a very bad thing.

We all have to have the right to take part in public protest about human rights abuse, about war, about peace and about anything else. That is what democracy is about. I saw this whole effort as a means of trying to silence the democratic rights of everybody in our society by picking on us two as Members of Parliament. I am grateful for the decision that has been made today, but like my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), I do not intend to let it rest there.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving notice of his point of order. As he knows, it is not a matter for the Chair, but he has put his point on the record.