Far-right Violence and Online Extremism

Naz Shah Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I hope that when the White Paper comes out that the hon. Lady is not disappointed. Given the way the internet is constructed, we have to make sure that regulation works. There is simply no point in putting out a load of regulation if everyone puts their servers somewhere like Cuba or North Korea and nothing can change. We have to make sure we have a technical solution alongside a regulatory solution.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) for securing this urgent question, and you for granting it, Mr Speaker. May I say how disappointed I am in the “whataboutery” response to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting)? As a Muslim who has the largest Muslim constituency in the United Kingdom and who spent the weekend reassuring not only my constituents but my own Muslim family, I can tell the Minister how Islamophobia happens: it happens because it goes unchecked; it happens because people in politics have responsibilities that they do not meet. The Conservative party ran the most Islamophobic dog-whistle campaign against the Mayor of London, who happens to be Muslim. The party has yet to apologise for that campaign. Its former chair Baroness Warsi is crying out for an inquiry, as is the Conservative Muslim Forum. The Minister must check that his own house is in order before he can give me or my constituents any confidence that his party can safeguard the Muslim community.

[Mr Wallace]

I have long been a good friend of Baroness Warsi. I read her book and met with her, and indeed I encouraged her to apply to be the extremism commissioner at the time the post was advertised, because I thought she would bring a good measure of sense to dealing with some of those issues. Regrettably, she did not take up my invitation, but it would have been a good thing.

I am not making excuses for Islamophobia. Islamophobia exists. Islamophobia is racism. Islamophobia should be dealt with. If it happens in my party, we should deal with it and we should deal with it forthwith, and I am happy to do that wherever I see it. We should all make sure we deal with it. I totally agree with the hon. Lady: it is racism and where we see it we should stop it in its tracks.