John Hayes
Main Page: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)Department Debates - View all John Hayes's debates with the HM Treasury
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
According to the philosopher Michael Oakeshott, civilisation
“begun in the primeval forests and extended and made more articulate in the course of centuries…is a conversation which goes on both in public and within each of ourselves.”
Conversation, of course, implies a discourse in which no one voice dominates, no one is shouted down and contrasting perspectives are heard and respected, even when agreement is unlikely and compromise unexplored. Yet, we now live in an age where many have no interest in a real conversation and where delight is taken in silencing dissenting voices. We live in an age where some talk of the importance of history, but really mean propaganda—when someone is suggesting, in essence, that people educate themselves, know the doctrine, learn the mantra and toe the line. In our brave new world, activist groups vie for attention by shouting ever louder in what can best be described as a competition of victimhood.
Sir John Hayes
I will not at the moment, but I will a little later.
Each group claims a spurious moral authority founded on its own sense of oppressed marginalisation. The historical truth is dismissed, in cultural Marxist terms, as a construct of persecutors: only they really understand the past and the present, and they now assert that others must be forced to be cleansed by acknowledging their guilt and by recognising their unconscious bias. The notion that we are defined by our race or sexuality is now so ubiquitous that we have become numb to just how disturbingly stultifying it really is. To confine and condense the identity of a unique individual made in the image of God to things over which they have no choice—their gender or their race—is sorrowfully lacking in perspective and ambition.
Some of my colleagues may be reluctant to engage in this debate, but that is not true of the Minister for Equalities, any more than it is true of the Home Secretary or the Attorney General. They are in the vanguard of the battle against this kind of dogmatic, doctrinal cultural Marxism, because they know that politics is palpably about values, not just about dull, mechanistic, economic minutiae. We should celebrate the contribution of everyone to our country, whatever their background, their colour or creed, and of course, in that spirit I welcome Black History Month, but history is very rarely a simple case of black and white, literally or metaphorically. A proper appreciation of history is dependent on understanding that the past is as complex as the present, and that humanity is both flawed and capable of greatness. Let us take the British empire, for example. Though of course it is true that empires begin in the interests of their colonial founders, the crass assumption that all that is subsequently done in their imperial names is exclusively wicked is as stupid as it is simplistic. In the words of the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips:
“The woke ultras who want to wipe away all symbols of British imperialism don’t speak for families who lived under the Empire”.
Anne McLaughlin
I will not go back to what the right hon. Gentleman said earlier because I have forgotten his exact words, but does he not accept that there are different perspectives when it comes to the empire and our role in it? Should those different perspectives be discussed in education and should we be told about them, or should we just have the one perspective that we have now?
Sir John Hayes
Yes, of course I accept that. I am a trained history teacher, so of course I understand that there are differing interpretations of history. The problem I was describing earlier—the hon. Lady clearly bristled when I was doing so—is that there are those who want to sanitise and reinvent history. The truth is that all we are now is a product of all that came before, good, bad and ugly, and we cannot simply wipe away the past. This is not year zero, and to believe otherwise is, frankly, Orwellian.
Sir John Hayes
No, I will not give way because I know that many more contributors want to get in.
In years gone by, children were taught about figures who unite us, regardless of background or circumstances, in a shared love of the country: from Alfred the Great to Florence Nightingale and from Nelson to Winston Churchill and Edith Cavell.
Sir John Hayes
I will give way briefly, because I gave way to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin).
James Sunderland
What does my right hon. Friend think about recent attempts to discredit these national heroes?
Sir John Hayes
My hon. Friend has, among other colleagues, played a noble role in challenging some of the institutions that have bought exactly the cultural Marxist agenda that I describe. I am thinking in particular of the work that he, I and others have done in ensuring that the good names of Sir Winston Churchill and Horatio Nelson are not besmirched. In doing that, we are of course not arguing that all that came before us was good and pure, but to take the view that those individuals should be judged by the standards of today and not seen in the context of their time is ahistorical rather than an interpretation of history, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North East was advocating.
The stories of these figures are not based on the advancement of the interests of a few—of a small subsection of society—but are stories of dedication and duty, service and sacrifice for the common good, for the many. So compelling is their heroism that many migrants to Britain, notably from Africa and the West Indies, chose to name their children Nelson, Winston and Gordon after men who are among the empire’s greatest sons. Yet now culture warriors are determined, by reinventing the past, to dictate the future. Under their heel, history must be rewritten and the very concept of heroism obliterated. It is time for patriots in this country—black and white, regardless of their origins—to fight back and to reclaim heroism, patriotism and history from those who seek to distort and demean all that has gone by in the pursuit of political ideology.
The overwhelming majority of the British public, and in particular the working classes—the class that I come from, in stark contrast to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who spoke earlier—take a view different from that of the bourgeois metropolitan elite. Most people in this country are deeply proud of their country and its history. Earlier this summer, polling for Policy Exchange’s history project found that 69% of people rightly believed that UK history as a whole was something to be proud of; just 17% thought it was something of which to be ashamed.
While it is right to celebrate the historic contribution of black, white and Asian Britons, let us first and foremost celebrate what we share. Let us celebrate all of our yesterdays, for unless we do, all our tomorrows will be poorer and poisoned. As I said earlier, I want others to contribute, so I shall conclude. As one of the few qualified history teachers in this place, let me offer this lesson: ours is a land of hope and glory—a proud Union with a past to be proud of.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I just want to point out that I am trying to get everybody in and if people who have spoken intervene again, that prevents others from getting in.