Public Landmarks Review

John Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Politics is about values. Gone are the days when half-hearted political careerists could retreat to the safe ground of mechanistic economic minutiae, for the new battle of Britain has begun. Islamic extremists, Black Lives Matter radicals and Extinction Rebellion rioters despise our way of life, and British patriots expect resistance, not retreat, and from resistance we will advance. In years gone by, as my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) said, children were taught about the exploits of our nation’s heroes. Now, left-wing zealots and their ill-educated acolytes are determined, by cancelling the past, to dictate the future. For them, heroes must be cancelled too. Yet in the struggle to counter the brave new world of moral relativism and meaningless mundanity heroes remain vital, as he said, for our shared sense of identity. By embodying the spirit of their times, they bring historical truth to life, so building our collective understanding of how our nation was forged.

In essence, heroes bring us together, just as the identity politics of the left seeks to tear us apart. By dividing us into exclusionary social tribes, the socioeconomic elite distract to disarm us, so perpetuating their heartless rule over working-class patriots. Make no mistake, this political struggle of our time is for all time.

In Marxist cultural dogma, identity must always be defined by a sense of grievance. Rather than fostering harmonious patriotic pride, they deride our colonial history, ignorantly dismissing our time-honoured worldwide contribution to civilisation. Nowhere is heroism more potent than when soldiers, sailors and airmen leave their homes, families and friends to protect British interests in storms of all kinds across vast oceans and distant landscapes.

Mindful of exceptional service, it is our patriotic duty to commemorate those who have been awarded our nation’s highest honours. A total of 1,300 individuals have been awarded the Victoria Cross for valour in the presence of the enemy; 408 men and women have received the George Cross after displaying conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger. Too many who have given so much have been all but forgotten. In some places, locals may be unaware that they tread in the footsteps of local heroes, who made a difference to their whole nation.

The Members of Parliament associated with the Common Sense Group seek to commemorate VC and GC recipients by naming roads, parks and public buildings in their honour, reigniting their memory and refreshing their legacy. Let us have more plaques, more memorials, more statues, not merely retaining and explaining, but retaining, explaining and acclaiming the heroism of those who helped to build Britain.

In the same spirit, as our eyes are lifted to public buildings, all should fly the Union flag—the flag of our United Kingdom. I hope the Minister will confirm that, immediately following this Adjournment debate, he will take measures to put such an instruction in place.

The story of our heroes teaches us that, through service and sacrifice, men and women reach the apex of human endeavour. For our generation and those born later, let us glory in this, our land of hope.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who of course has a statue to the Earl of Dudley looking over his town in the west midlands. The Leader of the Opposition should take his Mayor in hand, but I am afraid that I must borrow from Euripides, who famously said that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. If Euripides were with us today, he would probably say that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make members and leaders of the Labour party, because the leader of the Labour party has gone mad. He has been captured. He is a POW—a prisoner of woke. I trust that he will be released so that he can direct his friend the Mayor of London to pay greater attention to Londoners, because it will be for them, ultimately, to judge whether that £1.1 million of public expenditure is spent on statue destruction, or whether the Mayor might better spend his time and the public’s money trying to put up more homes for Londoners rather than pull down their statues in public parks.

I suspect that the Mayor’s real interest is to distract us and draw our attention away from his lamentable failure to build a better future for Londoners. To borrow from Churchill—by the way, his statues are going nowhere—Sadiq Khan is a very modest Mayor with much to be modest about. Let me be quite clear: his lopsided commission has no mandate to advocate for the removal of existing statues. The Government’s policy is that historic statues should be retained and explained rather than removed, and any such proposed removal of an historic statue should rightly be, and will be, subject to planning permission or listed building consent.

[Sir John Hayes]

And, I hope, to acclaim. In congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) on securing the debate, may I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister to support the idea that I advanced of more plaques and statues, particularly for winners of the VC and GC, who, by the way, are drawn from all ethnicities?