Antisemitic Offences

Debate between Lee Rowley and Charlotte Nichols

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.