Public Office Disqualification: Terrorism Offences

Jim Allister Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on the thoughtful and able way in which he introduced this important debate, and I thank the 583 Birmingham Northfield constituents who took the time to sign the petition.

This petition raises important questions about democratic participation and the potential abuse of our political systems, and it is right that we are debating it. I understand and share the sentiment behind the petition. Most people would hold the view that terrorists should not hold elected office, and certainly not positions of executive authority. There is also a valid question to be asked about the effective five-year prohibition against standing for election that applies in practice for domestic convictions of terrorism but not for overseas convictions. Those overseas convictions are not always straightforward, as has already been acknowledged, and I am sure that we will come back to that point during the debate.

It has been said that there are important matters of detail to work through. One of those is that the petition calls for people who hold such a conviction to be barred from standing for public office, but it would not, as drafted, debar appointments to the House of Lords or to senior civil service positions. I do not want to spend long on this point, because I suspect that it is a drafting issue, but hon. Members will recall when a former member of the Revolutionary Communist party—an organisation that acted as an apologist for the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign—was appointed to the other place a few years ago and has never disavowed those views. That is a particularly important point for colleagues in Warrington, and for all those affected by the Brimingham pub bombings.

We must also be mindful of the precedent set by the peace process in Northern Ireland. One of the aims of the Good Friday agreement was to permit people to move from physical force republicanism and physical force loyalism to democratic participation. That peace was built on the primacy of the ballot box, and I am sure that it is not the desire or the intention of the petition’s drafters to undo any part of that settlement.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

Does it come as a surprise to the hon. Gentleman, if he is correct about the purpose of the Belfast agreement in that regard, that former terrorists who were elected continue to this very day to glorify and regularly celebrate their acts of terrorism? Surely that is not compatible with their having turned their backs on terrorism.

[Laurence Turner]

I think I have made it clear in my remarks about other representatives that I hold no truck at all with apologism for or the glorification of terrorism.

There is one more problem. The petition seeks to disbar from public office all those who hold overseas terrorism convictions, but such a disqualification could, if drafted without the greatest of care and precision, effectively allow foreign Governments to determine who can stand for election in the United Kingdom. Authoritarian regimes routinely misuse terrorism laws against political opponents and democracy activists. One example is Russia. UN special rapporteurs have said that the Russian Government deploy a

“repressive toolbox targeting civil society…A key part of the government strategy has been to abuse anti-extremism and counter-terrorism provisions by designating civil society organisations as ‘extremist’ or ‘terrorist’, and bringing criminal charges, including extremism and terrorism-related, against their members or anyone associated with them, including victims of human rights violations.”

We need only to think about parliamentary colleagues who have been sanctioned by regimes overseas because of comments they have made in this place. Critics of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine are now routinely labelled as terrorists or terrorist sympathisers. We cannot create the prospect of British citizens being tried in absentia by states they may never have stepped foot in and then effectively being barred from running for council or parliamentary positions. However well-intentioned the petition’s aim, we cannot hand Vladimir Putin a veto over our political representation or any other aspect of British public life.

It is helpful to return to the case that led to the petition—that of an independent candidate in Birmingham, the city of which I am proud to represent a part. While I do not seek to tar them all with the same brush, Birmingham had no shortage this year of independent candidates who preached messages of division and seemed to enjoy bringing the circus of national and international media attention down on parts of the city. We even had candidates who took their direction from or co-ordinated with George Galloway, a man who used to make a pulpit out of the Russian and Iranian state broadcasters and who now apparently lives in Russia.

In Sparkhill, one of the independent candidates was a man called Shahid Butt. Mr Butt holds a Yemeni terrorism conviction dating back to 1998-99. We can also look to more recent events to see why Mr Butt is utterly unfit to be a community representative or elected politician. Before the planned Aston Villa match against Maccabi Tel Aviv, he said this on social media—I have seen the original, and it is not taken out of context:

“if someone comes into your face, you knock his teeth out. That’s my message”.

It is worth pointing out that while it is right that we debate the petition’s important proposals, the people of Sparkhill rejected Mr Butt’s candidature. He lost decisively and two Labour councillors were returned. In that case, we needed good organisation and trust in the people of this country.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley (Tahir Ali) would forgive some comments about part of his constituency. Much has been said in the national press about Sparkhill, egged on by inflammatory comments made two years ago by a former Member of this place who should have known better. My mum was born on Evelyn Road in Sparkhill, and I feel a certain defensiveness when that area or any other part of Birmingham is used as a national political football. Many of us are fed up, and I am fed up of the national and social media tourists who think they can use Birmingham as a passing canvas to propagate stereotypes for cheap clicks, and who give the oxygen of publicity to unrepresentative ideologues and self-obsessed narcissists who crave attention. I am very glad that this year, in Sparkhill, their politics was defeated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I commend the petitioners who brought forward the important issue we are debating. I certainly endorse both the spirit and the letter of the petition, but I want to make an important point. If the Government are ever to act on this matter, as they should, they must act on a UK-wide basis. I say that as someone who represents a constituency in Northern Ireland, where too often a double standard has been applied. We should not and must not have a double standard on the issue of terrorists being allowed to be elected in one part of the United Kingdom but not in another.

I say that in the context of the sad experience of Northern Ireland. We have had a gallery of serious terrorist convicts elected not just to the Northern Ireland Assembly, and not just to this House—they do not take their seats but get all the expenses that the rest of us get; some have gone on to hold governmental office in Northern Ireland. I think of some of the more notorious ones, such as the Old Bailey bomber, Gerry Kelly, who came to this city to bomb the Old Bailey. A man died and, in due course, Gerry Kelly was convicted and put where he ought to have been—in prison. He escaped, shooting a prison officer in the head in the course of his escape. He was then able to stand for and be elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly. More than that, he was able to become a junior Minister to the First Minister of Northern Ireland. And more than that, he is to this day a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Think of the absurdity of that: an Old Bailey bomber sitting in judgment over a police service on the Northern Ireland Policing Board.

If the Government ever act as they should, they must take action across this United Kingdom to prevent all those with terrorist convictions from attaining office. Of course, Kelly is not alone. There are many more, including Conor Murphy, a man who was elected to this House. He has never served here, because Sinn Féin refuse to take their seats, but he still got all the expenses of this House. He is a man who was convicted of the possession of explosives and given a five-year sentence, and he still has unanswered questions about his knowledge of the murder of young Paul Quinn in south Armagh. Yet he is a man who was once an MP, then a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and then a Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive. That is what happens when we do not fetter the rights of those who have taken up the bomb and the gun and we allow them to abuse the democratic process.

I think of another continuing member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Pat Sheehan, who got 24 years for an attempted booby-trap bomb. He still serves as an elected representative. I think of Paul Butler, who was convicted of the murder of a policeman. The Principal Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Carál Ní Chuilín, is a convicted terrorist. She was convicted for a booby-trap attack on a police station. There are many more besides. That illustrates what happens when we do not address an issue like this. There are abiding lessons from the experience of Northern Ireland

I must correct the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), who said that Martin McGuinness had no convictions. Martin McGuinness was convicted twice by the Dublin criminal court of membership of the IRA, which is a terrorist offence. Yet he went on to become Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland.

There are two abiding consequences of allowing terrorists to be elevated to elected office. The first is that it sanitises the very acts of terrorism. As I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner), we have a situation in Northern Ireland where regularly, weekend after weekend, elected representatives glorify acts of terrorism and salute the so-called bravery of those who were what they call freedom fighters and what the rest of us call vile terrorists. For example, to this very day the First Minister will regularly salute the memory of terrorists. She does that from a position of elected office, and that elevates, sanitises and justifies the very acts of those terrorists. That is the fallout of allowing terrorists to be elected to public office.

The second, chilling, abiding consequence of allowing terrorists to be elected is that it sends a very dangerous message to the next generation of people who might be tempted to tamper and get involved in terrorism, because what do they see? They see that it worked for the previous generation of terrorists. They end up in the highest offices in the land, so it incentivises rather than disincentivises the pursuit of terrorism.

If young people, misled by dissident republicans in Northern Ireland, look at the Sinn Féin Benches and see multiple former terrorists presenting and parading as statespeople, having attained elected office, what message does it send to those young people? It sends a message that terrorism worked for them—“So why not for us?”, they might think. That is one of the dangers of allowing the elevation of terrorists into elected office. An act of terrorism is an act that deliberately takes on the political system to destroy it by the bomb and the bullet. It is wholly incongruous, given the definition of terrorism, to then have those terrorists, still boasting of their acts of terrorism, involved at the highest levels of that system.

I come back to my first point. If the Government are to act on this petition, and they should, they need to act on a nationwide basis across the United Kingdom. We cannot have one rule for one and another for another. There cannot be any hiding behind what is euphemistically called the peace process in Northern Ireland to justify the elevation of terrorists, because peace came in Northern Ireland—I will correct some Members here—not because of the Belfast agreement but because our gallant security forces defeated the terrorists, who were then, sadly, able to win the peace and gain what they gained. With those thoughts, I strongly support the petition, and I salute those who brought it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison McGovern]

There is no excuse or justification for terrorism. I repeat those standards, which we must all uphold in public life, for that reason. The hon. Lady made her point clearly and directly on the record.

[Jim Allister]

Will the Minister give way?

[Alison McGovern]

I will give way very briefly—I do not want to detain the House.

[Jim Allister]

The Minister talks about standards in voting and public life. As I indicated in my speech, weekend after weekend, we have people in public life glorifying terrorism and saluting the memories of their fallen colleagues, as they call them, who were vile, vicious terrorists. How is that upholding any standard in public life?

[Alison McGovern]

I simply say again that there is absolutely no justification for terrorism. All of us who seek elected office are responsible for upholding the standards I just read out.

We are all too aware in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that the current local government standards framework does not have the teeth it needs. Where elected members fall short of the standards the public rightly expects, there must be meaningful ways to hold them to account. Specifically in English local government, the vast majority of councillors serve their communities with dedication and integrity. Poor behaviour, though rare, can have a profound impact by damaging trust, undermining the performance of local government and deterring good candidates from contesting elections. If we want high-quality candidates to come forward, they need the confidence that local government is a serious, respectful and safe environment in which to serve.

That is why we will introduce a framework that commands public confidence, which will include a mandatory code of conduct for local government; appropriate sanctions, such as suspension and disqualification for multiple breaches; and fair processes, such as a clear appeals route for complainants and members. Last year, we published the response to the consultation on strengthening the standards framework for local authorities in England. We have a substantial and ambitious legislative programme, and there was no capacity for a dedicated Bill to enact those reforms this time, but we remain committed to strengthening the framework and intend to bring forward legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows.

The 200,000 people who signed the petition raise a serious and legitimate question about whether the current framework is sufficient, and as I mentioned in opening, the defending democracy taskforce is considering it. Existing disqualification criteria, candidate declarations and public scrutiny, alongside our wider counter-terrorism powers, provide significant safeguards from immediate threats. However, we are going further, and we will strengthen our systems to protect our democracy, embed high standards of Member conduct and rebuild trust in public office. Any change in the law would need to be workable for electoral administrators, fair to candidates, robust in the courts and clear to the public and, most importantly, to uphold the values of democracy that we hold dear. I am sure Members in this House will continue to engage with this most serious of issues.

Representation of the People Bill

Jim Allister Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

The central point of the Bill is, of course, the franchising of 16 and 17-year-olds. I will not deal with that issue extensively, although I must say that I thought the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly) essentially demolished the argument for votes for children. However, I want to look at it in a slightly different context.

Whether someone is 16 or 86, the whole idea of universal suffrage is that people have the opportunity, as equals, to elect those who make their laws, whether in a council, in this Parliament, or in some other institution. That is the fundamental point. Indeed, the secret is in the title: Representation of the People—representation in the election of those who then make our laws. But here is the problem. If the Bill is passed and you are a 16-year-old in my constituency, you will not be electing those who make all your laws. If you are an 86-year-old in my constituency, you will not be electing those who make all your laws. That is because we are in the absurd position that in part of this United Kingdom—which boasts of universal suffrage, which boasts of equal rights across this United Kingdom—in not one area but in more than 300 areas of law, the laws are not made by those whom we elect; they are made by those in a foreign Parliament, the European Parliament, elected by the electorates of 27 other countries.

[Liam Conlon]

The hon. and learned Gentleman mentions Europe. Another key component of this Bill is transparency in funding, and he will know that the Constitutional Research Council donated nearly half a million pounds to the Vote Leave campaign in Northern Ireland—a company that does not disclose its accounts or who funds it. This Bill will correct that. Does he agree that is a fantastic move forward?

[Jim Allister]

Yes, transparency in funding is important, and I will say something about that if I have time, but there is a more fundamental issue. Whatever their age, the hon. Member’s constituents, once they are given the vote, have a right to elect those who make their laws. My constituents and I do not have the right to elect those who make our laws in my part of the United Kingdom, and I challenge anyone in this House to tell me why it is either democratic or right that we should have universal suffrage on the basis of representation of the people, but that we should extract and remove from the people of Northern Ireland that fundamental right in 300 areas of law. That is perverse. It is wrong. The Secretary of State, in introducing this debate, said that this Government “will tackle foreign interference head-on”. Well, let them start by removing the foreign interference in making the laws in my part of the United Kingdom. That would be a very good starting point.

Finally, I want to make a point about foreign donations. This House may know that in Northern Ireland we have a party by the name of Sinn Féin, which has run a coach and horses through every regulation that has ever been made about foreign donations. Because the party operates in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, it plays the rules of one against another. In a recent year it received £2 million from the United States, so what does it do? It filters the money through whichever country’s laws allow it to be most easily filtered, and then moves it north-south or south-north, as suits the party’s purposes. This Bill does not yet go far enough. I want to see it tighten those loopholes and make sure that travesty cannot continue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Allister Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

With recent weeks having seen the closure of the two largest retailers on the main shopping street in Ballymena in my constituency, does the Minister think that the ideology of Pride in Place is capable of rescuing the situation? As part of that, would it be possible to have a special programme whereby large retail spaces whose overheads are unbearable could be subdivided into small retail units for new businesses, so that those overheads might become bearable?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

The plight of our high streets is something that this Government are very alive to, and we are trying to work with national and local governments to make sure we respond. Our job is to make sure we are providing the powers and the ability for places to shape their high streets so that they respond to what their communities want. We are open to ideas in that space, including ideas coming from local areas.

Chinese Embassy

Jim Allister Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I appreciate why the hon. Gentleman is tempting me on this matter, but as I have made very clear, it would be completely inappropriate for me to comment from this Dispatch Box on national security considerations in respect of this live case. On his specific question of whether China has been given a commitment that permission will be granted, the decision is being taken by my Department in line with statutory provisions governing planning decisions and published propriety guidance, and as I keep saying, no decision has yet been made on the case.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

Why are this Government so evidently in awe of the Chinese Government and their requirements? Is one of those requirements that this mega-embassy be approved before the Prime Minister visits Beijing?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I simply do not accept that characterisation of the Government’s approach to China. We have to take a consistent and pragmatic approach, but we recognise that China poses a series of threats. As I have said, no decision has yet been made on this case, and all material planning considerations will be taken into account when one is made.

Chinese Embassy Development

Jim Allister Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

As I said, a public inquiry was held between 11 and 28 February, and all the relevant documents submitted to that inquiry are available online. I encourage the right hon. Gentleman to go and look at them. Again, he invites me to speculate on matters that are part of the application that the inspector will have considered in making his report and recommendation—when that arrives—to the Department. I emphasise again that no case is yet with the Department.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

If national security is a material consideration, will that be judged only by what is in the inspector’s report? If so, how could that be adequate, since the UK’s China audit will not have been published before the inspector concludes his report?

[Matthew Pennycook]

At the point when the planning inspector’s report and recommendation is received, it will be determined by a planning Minister, who will come to a decision based on material planning considerations that have been analysed.

Representation of the People

Jim Allister Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

I very much welcome this proposal. I represent a constituency in Northern Ireland, where, as has been referenced, we have had voter ID for over 20 years. It works very well, and is something that the rest of the United Kingdom could build upon and learn from. The hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith) said that we have a voter ID card. Yes, we do. If a person does not have a passport, driving licence, bus pass or whatever else is on the list, they can apply to the Electoral Office, supply a photograph, and complete a form that a councillor, MP or doctor can verify. The person is then issued, for free, a voter ID card that carries their photograph and name. As the hon. Member suggested, it is valuable in other regards as well, so I would certainly recommend that as a way to go in these matters.

The draft regulations will add the veteran card to the list of usable identification. While the regulations apply only to Great Britain, upon seeing them I tabled a question to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and I was very pleased with his answer. He indicated that he proposes to add the veteran card to the list of acceptable documents in Northern Ireland before we have further elections. That is good because it not only enhances the parity that should exist but eases the situation of veterans when it comes to voting. I very much welcome that.

I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), the spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats. I do not understand their aversion to voter ID. In Northern Ireland, we have had it for more than 20 years because of industrial-scale voter fraud, organised in the main of course by Sinn Féin, which literally had an army at its back to steal votes. Faced with that, it is right to have a system of voter ID. No party that is not engaged in cheating or wanting to cheat has anything to fear from it.

[Paul Holmes]

I share the hon. and learned Member’s scepticism about the view of the Liberal Democrats. I believe the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) said that there were no convictions for electoral fraud in this country during 2021-22. Actually, there was a case in Eastleigh, my old constituency—I see that the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) is also present—of someone who had to complete 50 hours of unpaid work for providing a false name at a polling station in 2022.

[Jim Allister]

We should be doing anything that we can to diminish the opportunities for voter fraud. Why would we not? I do not understand the reticence.

[Sarah Olney]

The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned that he does not see why political parties that compete fairly should have anything to fear. I put it to him that it is not a fear of political parties; it is much more about upholding the rights of voters. It is their interests that we need to protect, not the interests of political parties. That is why we are calling for the abolition of voter ID, although I fully take on board his points about the situation in Northern Ireland.

[Jim Allister]

We are protecting voters when we prevent voter fraud, which is precisely what voter ID does. It is the ordinary citizen who is being protected—the citizen who wants to play by the rules, who wants to vote properly, and who does not want to cheat or personate others. That is the person we are protecting by introducing voter ID.

[Sarah Olney]

As I said to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), the risk of being prevented from voting because of an inability to produce the relevant voter ID is much higher than the risk of personation. That is borne out by all the evidence and research. The hon. Gentleman managed to cite one instance in Eastleigh. I put it to him, and to the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister), that that single instance is likely to be outweighed many times over by the number of people who were prevented from voting by the requirements.

[Jim Allister]

I respectfully suggest that there is probably an unknown hidden degree of personation. If a certain number of people are prosecuted, it does not mean that only that number of people are personating others. The way to rule out personation and present hurdles to it is to have voter ID. I really do not understand why anyone who wants a clean election, with only legitimate voters voting and only legitimate votes counted, would say, “We don’t want any protections to ensure that there’s no voter cheating.” Surely we should all want to be on the side of preventing cheating in elections. This really is the question: are we on the side of making it more difficult to cheat in an election, or on the side of making it easier? Surely we should all be on the side of making it more difficult. I therefore strongly defend voter ID.

Returning to the core subject matter, it is fitting that in the week of Remembrance Day we are adding the veteran card to the ID list. I look forward to that happening in Northern Ireland as well, but I want to raise a point that a serving soldier sent me a message about, which also touches on voting. He wrote:

“I just want to highlight a further issue that serving members of the Armed Forces when serving abroad can’t exercise their ability to vote due to the inefficiency of the now contracted British Forces Post Office. The length of time to request a postal vote”,

which is how most service people vote,

“and then to send your vote means you miss the deadline”

often. He then cited all the countries where servicemen are. Some can be as far away as the Falklands, Germany, Poland or Africa. He asked why we cannot have more efficiency in getting postal votes out to service people and back. That seems a legitimate question. He went on:

“Many other countries provide polling booths in their military bases or…in their embassies”.

Why do we not do that, Minister? Why do we not go further for our service personnel serving abroad, to ensure that they participate in the democratic process, as they are entitled to? Those are important questions that need to be answered, and a matter to which this House should give some attention.