Far-right Violence and Online Extremism

Debate between John Whittingdale and Ben Wallace

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. and learned Lady makes some good points. On her point about Islamophobia, I have publicly spoken out for many years about the fact that Islamophobia exists. It exists across our communities, in all our political parties and in the communities we represent; it exists throughout Europe, not just in the UK, and we have to tackle it.

If you want a good lesson on how to tackle intolerance, Mr Speaker, I should say that one of the early successful policies of the SNP was on dealing with anti-sectarianism. The SNP recognised in Scotland that this starts with sectarianism and it grows into violent extremism. I have to commend the SNP for what it did all those years ago on that, taking strong steps, certainly among the football community, to stamp it out. That is why, in the end, we have to focus upstream. We must focus in the communities and say what is not acceptable. We must embrace policies such as Prevent to make sure that everyone realises that this is ultimately about safeguarding.

On the issue relating to the community trust, the hon. and learned Lady is right. We will direct our funds as the threat changes, and we are completely open to learning every day from the attacks and plots we see, either here or abroad. We shall direct this in that way. My colleagues in government regularly speak to a range of Muslim communities, and many of us in this House will speak to our own communities in our own constituencies.

We will sense the fear that there currently is in some of those communities as a response to the attack in New Zealand and that there was even before that, given the growing rise of Islamophobia, spread through the evils of some of these chatrooms on the internet. We must, all of us, say that that is not acceptable, and neither is intolerance aimed at other people in other discourse around the world, be it in respect of Unionism and nationalism, or Brexit and remain. Intolerance is where this starts as a small seed, and it grows into hate.

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, and I strongly agree that the tech companies need to do more to stop the spread of hate and incitement to violence. However, does he also recognise that the internet is a force for good and that many authoritarian countries—China and, now, particularly Russia—are attempting to impose censorship on it for their own repressive political purposes? Does he therefore agree that any measures we take need to be proportionate and targeted, and must not allow other countries, such as Russia, to claim somehow that they are acting for reasons similar to ours?

[Mr Wallace]

It is tempting to say that my right hon. Friend is asking the wrong person. As Security Minister, I see daily how paedophiles, organised crime, groomers and terrorist recruiters use the internet as not a force for good. As we speak, the internet is being used to undermine our own democracy.

My right hon. Friend makes a valid point that, in places where there is no democracy and no rule of law, the internet is sometimes people’s only hope to engage with free thought and the outside world. We have to be very careful about how we balance that but, nevertheless, we know these companies can remove extremist content very quickly when they put their minds to it.

There are certain areas on which we all agree. I cannot find anyone in the world who would support allowing child sexual exploitation images to exist on our internet. Violent extremism, beheading videos and bullying online cannot be acceptable in any society. We can all agree that a number of activities should not be allowed or available on the internet without someone taking responsibility for preventing the broadcast or spreading of it. All of us in this House have to try to navigate that fine line, and we will debate it when the online White Paper comes before us.