Antisemitic Offences

Lee Rowley Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety (Lee Rowley)]

I am genuinely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards) for giving us the opportunity to speak about this hugely important subject, and to almost all hon. Members for their contributions. To the hon. Members who have sought to politicise this, I would just say that there are times and there are places, and this was neither the time nor the place.

It is customary to start debates like this by saying that it is a pleasure to serve—and, of course, it is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz—but in truth, it is not a pleasure to be here today. It is not a pleasure to have listened to some of the absolutely outrageous stories that we have heard over the past half hour. It is not a pleasure to be sat in a debate that should not be needed at all. There is no pleasure to be had in this discussion, and I know that all colleagues here and outside this place share in that.

This debate is not a pleasure, but it is most definitely a necessity. It is a necessity, because in this seat of democracy there is an opportunity to call out the appalling acts of a tiny minority in recent months. It is a necessity for us to shine light on unacceptable behaviour, and to speak and articulate what we have sadly seen in recent months from a tiny group of people—that is, pure antisemitism. It might be dressed up as something else: it might be shrouded in a plaintive sense of emotion; it might be a preamble of obfuscation or confusion; it might be an inaccurate reference to fighting for something else; it might be the imposition of a horrifying hierarchy where Jewish deaths, Jewish injuries and Jewish blood appear to be less important than any other; or it might be the extraordinary insertion of context into the deaths of 1,200 people on 7 October. In truth, some are not even that subtle, and are now explicit about it, but whatever it is—whether implicit or explicit—we see it: it is present. If it walks, talks and acts like what it might be, then it probably is. It is antisemitism.

I want to be clear that no one in this room, nor the Government, seek to close down debate. No one here seeks to conflate legitimate criticism of one actor, one country, or one situation with explicit discrimination and prejudice. No one does not acknowledge the horror of war and the inhumanity of conflict—any conflict, anywhere, anytime, in any part of the world. No one is saying that we should not hear hard things; that is the mark of a civilised, educated, compassionate and curious society. But the other mark of a civilised society is calling out when things have gone too far, both implicitly and explicitly.

Part of the answer is law—you cannot incite violence—but another part is personal responsibility. There is a term that I hate; it is massively overused and I never thought I would be saying it. That term is “gaslighting”. But with the “From the river to the sea” chant, there is the most incredible abdication of responsibility for those who have used it casually, willingly, publicly—even, for some, joyfully. It may not be the case that everyone who has said it is antisemitic, but it absolutely is the case that all antisemites would be happy to use it.

There may also be a staggering misapplication of emotion via the trusted, weird logic of post-modernism that has taken root in so many of our universities, which abolishes the agency of the individual, dismantles the principle of the nation state and sees society only through the prism of a power dynamic where everyone either holds no power whatsoever, or holds all the power; and it follows that, as a result, anything that those without power do is virtuous and everyone who may have some semblance of power must be disregarded, ignored and dehumanised.

[Charlotte Nichols]

Will the Minister give way?

[Lee Rowley]

I will not give way. Postmodernism is an insidious, regressive and depressing call to all our worst selves, relying on false binaries and erroneous arguments. Most of the time, it sits in front of us without incident, in weird ideologies and daft PhDs. Yet occasionally it pops to the surface and the utter baselessness of it is revealed. At its heart, it needs to be ripped out of our society. This is not Britain. It is not supposed to be like this. This debate should not have happened; we are supposed to have moved on from this. It is clear that we have not.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Lee Rowley]

I will not, if I may.

Like so many others in this debate, I have seen examples as a constituency MP. Individual one: an employee at a Russell Group university who raises money for charity in her spare time. She started to email me on Saturday 28 October to ask whether it is donations to my party or the selling of weapons to Israel that influences my stand. She tells me that she does not agree with me about “from the river to the sea” being a call for a race to be wiped out. She tells me that groups such as Hamas will continue while Israel does what it does.

Next, individual two: a nurse practitioner just over the border in Sheffield, who lives in my constituency. She asks me how I sleep at night, tells me there is collective punishment, that there is a war crime and that there is genocide. Then individual three: an ex-civil servant, an economist and a volunteer at a children’s society, who decided to debate with me on Facebook how much terrorism would be acceptable. Or individual four: a retired nurse who posts sunsets on Facebook and talks about a plan to free up land, with some rubbing their hands together for oil deals and expansion. It is just incredible.

If someone had told me on Friday 6 October that within three months we would have seen Jewish schools vandalised, missing persons posters torn down, a massive rise in crime, Jewish friends telling me they sometimes no longer feel safe in this country and words that have real meaning being casually tossed around, I would not have believed them. If they had told me on Friday 6 October that the apparent genesis of that hatred was the execution of 1,200 innocent Jewish people simply for the crime of being Jewish, that would have been doubly shocking.

Recently, I spent a few days on holiday in America. When I was there, for the first time, I visited the site at Dallas. One of my favourite, although lesser known, quotes of John F. Kennedy said that history

“is the memory of a nation.”

Just as a memory enables the individual to learn, choose goals and stick to them, it prevents them making the same mistakes twice. That is exactly what we need to do here and that is what the Government and all decent people in society need to do.

The Prime Minister and a senior set of Ministers have already met Jewish community members and key organisations to listen to their concerns. As has been outlined by colleagues here already, we have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and we encourage other bodies to adopt it and consider its practical implementation. The Community Security Trust, which Members on all sides have referenced, has reported that incidents often occur near Jewish community buildings, such as synagogues and schools. The Government are providing protective security, such as guarding, CCTV and alarms at schools, colleges, nurseries, synagogues and community sites through the Jewish community protective security grant, which has provided more than £110 million since 2015.

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East, I should say that we continue with efforts to reduce radicalisation through the network of Prevent practitioners, who provide training to school staff on radicalisation and empower teachers to challenge extremism in the classroom. The reporting extremism online form allows concerns to be raised directly with the Department for Education. Since 7 October, the Government have engaged with schools, colleges and universities to offer support and guidance. The Education Secretary wrote to the sector urging them to respond swiftly to hate-related incidents and to actively reassure Jewish students so they can study without fear, harassment or intimidation, as hon. Members rightly said they must.

At the opening of the autumn statement, the Chancellor made clear his deep concerns about the rise of antisemitism, underscoring the Government’s commitment to tackling it. His commitments were backed by a further £7 million in funding over the next three years to help tackle antisemitism in education. I will take away the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) about research. I would be happy to do that, and, if we can, I am sure we will try. The autumn statement will ensure that support is in place for schools, colleges and universities to understand, recognise and deal with antisemitism effectively.

It was absolutely right and reasonable for the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) to ask about the online space. Ministers from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology recently convened social media companies and community voices to discuss online antisemitism and to understand the impact of this abhorrent content on communities. As part of the implementation of the Online Safety Act, we will remain in contact with social media platforms, and we have been clear that they need not wait for regulation before taking action.

I want to end with something that a Jewish friend once told me many years ago, long before the recent challenges. We were in conversation about our backgrounds, childhoods and families. In truth, I thought I would educate her, as the working class kid from Derbyshire talking to the posh girl from London. I told her about my background, and I waited for her to contrast it with her Twickenham upbringing, her gilded life at private school and her middle-class comforts, which she did. At the end, she turned to her Jewish heritage. It is something that she has always been hugely proud of, and she spoke about it with verve, passion and a reverence for history.

Casually, right at the end, my friend said one of the most arresting things that I have ever heard. “Of course, Lee,” she said, looking at me right in the eye, “I always keep a bag packed under my bed.” Confused, I did not immediately catch on. I had no knowledge, no background, no experience—I do not think I had met a Jewish person until I was 18. I am not saying that this is indicative of everybody in the community, but she said, “For me and my family, it is something we have done for decades. History taught us that we needed to be ready in case something ever went wrong, as it did for my forefathers and their forefathers before them. I don’t think it will ever be necessary, but it’s there in case it is—in case this country ever stops being my home.”

That must never ever happen. We are proud of our Jewish communities, just as we are proud of every single other community that makes up this rich patchwork of the United Kingdom, and we stand with them today. The United Kingdom is so much more than the isolated ugliness that we have seen. This Government and this Parliament—all parties here—and this country will continue to do whatever we can to build a stronger foundation to support our Jewish community in the months, years and decades ahead.