(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberJust as I am about to give the answer I am asked from a sedentary position what the answer is. Perhaps those on the Government Front Bench should just listen. The position is this. As the House knows, we set out the Labour party’s position in a letter to the Prime Minister. We set out in clear terms what a close economic relationship would look like. What was written in that letter has been well received, not only in the United Kingdom, by businesses and trade unions, but by the EU and EU leaders. It is a credible proposition.
(8 years, 10 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
In no way do I condone what Donald Trump said, but it is not right in fair dealing to say, “If you ban all of x, that means you think that all of x are dangerous,” whatever group it might be. Forgive me, but what Donald Trump is saying is that a very few from a certain group might be dangerous—that is where the proposed ban comes from. I do not condone the logic or the policy, but in this House of Commons we have to give fair dealing to the views that have been expressed.
We have to be very careful about equating the views of Members of this House who call for a ban with the views of Donald Trump. For me, his views edge towards treating a whole community as a suspect community. Of course, it may be that he does not think that of each and every member of the Muslim community, but this has happened before in many other contexts where a whole community has been treated as a suspect community. We stood against it in the past, and we should stand against it now.