Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I can say to the right hon. Gentleman that I will move on to that and will explain with real clarity precisely why we have proceeded in the way that we have. I suspect that he has a long memory. I am sure that he will recall that he has voted against proscribing a number of organisations previously, including al-Qaeda in 2001, when the motion was bundled along with 20 other militant organisations, so there is clear precedent for doing this. The reason we seek to do it is to demonstrate that we do not attach any kind of ideological prism with which to seek to make a judgment. The Home Secretary will take a view based on a legal threshold, and that is the basis on which we have proceeded.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for bringing forward this motion. If it comes to a vote, as some have indicated they wish it to do, my party will support the Government. I come from Northern Ireland, and we understand what it means to have security. It is important to have Government, Ministers, the police, the Army, MI5 and MI6, and they all have a responsibility. In relation to the membership of those organisations, is there a list of those who may be members of Palestine Action, for instance? I do not know where they are—there might be some in this House; if there is, perhaps we would understand. Will they be subject to the ruling and proscription as well?

[Dan Jarvis]

I know that the hon. Gentleman speaks with great authority on these matters, borne out of his extensive experience of dealing with these matters in Northern Ireland. If he is a little patient and if the House allows me to make a bit of progress, I will explain and respond to the point he has raised and the points that other hon. Members seek to raise.

If the House will allow, let me turn to the specific measures before us today, taking each of the proposed additions to the list of proscribed organisations in order. First, there is the Maniacs Murder Cult, also known as MMC, which is an insidious white-supremacist and neo-Nazi organisation operating online and across borders. It aims to encourage individuals to engage in acts of violence against people it perceives to be antisocial, including homeless people, drug addicts and migrants, all to further its own ideology and degrade human society through violence.

The Government assess that MMC commits, prepares for, promotes and encourages acts of terrorism. MMC members and leaders have claimed a number of violent attacks globally that were committed in pursuit of the group’s aims. MMC supplies instructional material that could increase the capability or motivation of an aspiring attacker, including a guide that provides information on how to fatally attack someone with a knife and use a vehicle as a weapon. MMC’s members and non-members share its material and other online content, including videos of violent attacks, to encourage further violence in support of its ideology.

On 22 May, a 21-year-old Georgian national known as Commander Butcher, considered to be one of MMC’s leaders, was extradited to the United States, and he is set to stand trial in New York for soliciting hate crimes and acts of mass violence. As set out in the indictment, he is alleged to have recruited individuals online to promote MMC’s ideologies by committing acts of murder, arson, bombing and mass poisoning in New York—acts targeted at members of ethnic minority groups, homeless people and Jewish schoolchildren. As this case illustrates, MMC has a truly transnational audience, which includes people in the UK. It does not matter where the leaders of this network are based if they are capable of inspiring acts of violence and terror in any country. Vulnerable individuals, such as minors, are particularly exposed to the horrific material MMC publishes and distributes online.

This Government will not stand by and allow the terrorist threat and wider societal harms caused by MMC to persist. Proscribing MMC is key to deterring and diverting individuals from engaging with its violent content, and it sends a clear signal to social media companies to remove MMC’s material from their platforms. The threat posed by MMC must be taken extremely seriously, whether it is inspiring acts of violence against our people or influencing young people to commit those acts. We will not hesitate to take action against such groups to keep our country safe.