Holocaust Memorial Day

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Joani Reid (East Kilbride and Strathaven) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) for not just his opening remarks but his commitment to this cause, both in this House and outside it. The Holocaust was a unique event in human history in which the state waged external war with expressly genocidal aims, combined with the industrialisation of killing as a transcontinental enterprise.

The Holocaust matters to us today because we owe it to the dead, and to the living who went through that horror, to commemorate their suffering; because we should pay tribute to those still with us, as well as those who have gone before us and who brought an end to the Hitler regime, whose raison d’être was the mass murder of Jews and others whom they saw as less human; and, perhaps most importantly, because we owe it to ourselves to remind each other of where the poison of racist hatred takes humanity.

Holocaust Memorial Day matters more this year, because there has undoubtedly been an appalling rise in antisemitic violence and in the public and private abuse of Jews. If the Holocaust teaches us anything, it is to stand up and call out hatred and racism. There is now a barely hidden campaign to drive Jews out of public and civic life in Britain—a campaign, I am sad to say, in which Members of this House are active participants or complicit. The eruption of antisemitism in Britain since 7 October 2023 has underlined how supposed progressives and anti-racists are fine to speak out, unless it is about hatred of Jews. Campaigners have marched alongside open supporters of fascistic Hamas and shouted slogans advocating a global war against Jews. They have done all this because they believe that their new-found allies are merely “anti-Zionist” and not actually antisemites at all.

The arguments that dominate today’s antisemitic discourse are superficially more sophisticated, and are increasingly shaped by the melting pot of extreme ideas that is provided by social media, but the reality is that the far right, the far left and the Islamists still rely on the old tropes of hidden Jewish power and manipulation, Jewish blood lust, and Jews as the killer of Christ. They now hide this behind the words “Zionism” or “Israel” and hope that people will not spot the difference. Through social media, many of these ideas have seeped into the discourse of what is supposedly mainstream.

In 2019, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman) told the Bruges Group of the supposed threat of “cultural Marxism”, an idea that has direct Nazi roots. It is a phrase that the former MP Andrew Percy warned others against using. In 2024, Liz Truss was forced to remove a bogus and antisemitic quote attributed to Mayer Rothschild from her memoirs. Then there is the case of Reform’s recently announced candidate for Gorton and Denton, who, like the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), appears not to believe that ethnic minority children born here can ever be British or understand British humour. This is the antisemites’ baseline argument about the otherness of Jews, retooled for the use of today’s insurgent far right and far left.

It behoves all of us to call out the issues in our midst, and there has been too much silence in this regard. Members of this House have been involved in stoking the fires of Islamist hatred, antisemitism and Holocaust inversion. Perhaps some will make very fine speeches about Holocaust memorial, as they did last year, but we should not allow ourselves to be fooled. One Member of this House, writing about the middle east on social media, invoked images of the gas chambers, a barbaric creation used for the industrialised and systematic murder of Jews—Jewish men, women and children. That trivialises the Holocaust.

However, there is not only Holocaust inversion; there are outright antisemitic tropes. Members of this House have shared posts on social media of images of political leaders being “dog-walked” or controlled by Israeli politicians or the Zionist lobby. This draws on stereotypes of Jewish power and control, and alludes to some kind of malign Jewish influence. These classic antisemitic tropes have existed for thousands of years, but are continually being repackaged and updated to fit the contemporary political context.

In the Budget debate, the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) talked about her constituents “bleeding…dry”, because of our Government’s support of Israel, and we also heard a Member of this House talk about Israel’s—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I want to make sure that protocol has been followed. First, we obviously do not mention Members by their names, not that the hon. Member has done that. She has, however, referred to a few Members by their constituencies, so can I have her assurance that she let them know that she would be referencing them in the Chamber during this debate?

[Joani Reid]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I can confirm that I have written to all the Members I have included in my speech.

Another Member talked about Israel’s “blood-soaked tentacles”. There is no safe limit of antisemitism that we should tolerate, and no requirement for us to apply weaker moral tests of what is an acceptable opinion because of the religious heritage of our interlocutor. Human rights apply universally, and so do human responsibilities. We need to enforce those responsibilities before it is too late. The warning lights are already flashing. We do not have to look back to the 1930s to see how democracies can crash under the burden of political extremism and contempt for the rule of law, because we see that in the news every day.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

It is an honour to speak in this debate and to follow such passionate speeches, including that of the hon. Member for East Kilbride and Strathaven (Joani Reid). I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) not only on such an eloquent introduction to this debate, but on such an interesting history of the persecution of Jews in Britain for the best part of 1,000 years. That was very informative and provided a much-needed context for our discussion.

Many Members spoke about the individuals, charities and organisations working tirelessly to ensure that the nation and schoolchildren in particular are educated about the Holocaust and will not forget it. As the average age of Holocaust survivors is 87, it is very prescient that the Holocaust Memorial Day theme is “Bridging Generations”. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust plays a vital role in ensuring that remembrance is not limited to those whose families were murdered in the Holocaust, but includes those who, having been mercilessly killed by the Nazis, were left with no one to speak their names. The legacy of victims with no surviving family or relatives must be safeguarded through education, remembrance and memorial.

If the words “never again” are to mean anything, they must represent a shared commitment to challenge hatred wherever it appears. Sadly, this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day comes against a backdrop of rising antisemitism. Jewish people in the UK are facing unacceptable and rising levels of hatred and violence—and I know from speaking to my constituents in Winchester just how isolating and frightening that can be. No one should feel anxious or scared when going to their place of worship and no one should be denied the freedom to express their religious beliefs. It ought to be a national shame that we need security measures outside places of worship, but with the murder of two members of the Jewish community just last year outside their synagogue, those measures are, unfortunately, necessary.

For so many British Jews, Holocaust Memorial Day is deeply personal. It is a day of grief, of remembrance and of resilience. Primo Levi wrote:

“The story of the death camps should be understood by everyone as a sinister alarm-signal.”

While hatred and division persist, that alarm signal must be in our minds today, and must remain in our minds for generations to come. On my way to the Chamber today, I walked past the very moving exhibition in Parliament of the replicas of the shoes of people who were killed in those death camps. Some of those shoes are of little children. That is a stark and haunting reminder of what the Holocaust required. The Holocaust depended on the systematic dehumanisation of its victims, casting human beings as non-human to justify the unjustifiable. To murder millions, the Nazi state had to treat even little children not as children with names, families and futures, but as something less than human.

In this Chamber and in our communities, schools and neighbourhoods, let us all stand with Jewish communities, because antisemitism has no place in our country or abroad. We must do all we can to ensure that Jewish people can practise their faith freely, live openly and participate fully in our society without fear. We remain today, and will always remain, committed to creating a society that never stops learning from the lessons of history.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Prinsley]

It has been an immense privilege and honour to listen to the many brilliant speeches in the House this afternoon. I thank anybody who said anything kind about me.

I have made some notes about what people said—there is no time to go through all of them, but I must mention one or two. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) spoke with such gravitas; I think she has a future as a distinguished rabbi, should she ever wish to go out of politics, which she perhaps will not. The hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) spoke about Peter Kurer BEM, who is my sister-in-law’s father. He will be so chuffed to learn that he was mentioned here in Parliament, and I thank the hon. Member for that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) spoke about the Windermere children. We all know that story, but Samantha, who was a University of East Anglia student, became a close friend. She is one of the granddaughters of a Windermere boy, so it was great to hear about that. We will never forget the Heaton heroes.

If there is time, let me quickly explain Bevis Marks, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake). Bevis Marks in the City of London should actually be “Bury Marks”, but I have to stop.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

No, you don’t!

[Peter Prinsley]

Oh, there is time! In that case, I will tell hon. Members the story. The great Abbey of Bury St Edmunds had large landholdings all over the country, including land in the City of London. Wooden stakes were put out each year to define the land, which were called the Bury marks. “Bevis Marks” is simply a spelling mistake.