Philip Davies
Main Page: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)Department Debates - View all Philip Davies's debates with the Home Office
(8 years, 11 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster 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
Tulip Siddiq
I think the question has been answered for the hon. Gentleman.
I looked at the cases of the 84 hate preachers who have not been allowed into the country. I want to highlight the case of a female blogger—I will not name her, but hon. Members are welcome to look her up—who was banned from entering our country. I looked at the rhetoric she used. Her crime was to equate the views of the entire Muslim population with those of a handful of extremists. The Home Office spokesperson said that she was not allowed into the country because:
“We condemn all those whose behaviours and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form.”
Her views and those of Donald Trump, who thinks that Muslims are all the same, are strikingly similar. They use very similar words. Will we apply our legislation equally to everyone or will we make exceptions for billionaire politicians, even when their words clearly fall short of the Home Office guidance?
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The hon. Lady said that she does not want any exceptions, but I have heard large number of my constituents make similar remarks to those of Donald Trump. She may disagree with them, but lots of my constituents agree with what Donald Trump said, whether I like it or not. Does she think that they should be expelled from the country as a result of their views? If not, what is the difference?
Tulip Siddiq
The hon. Gentleman should think carefully about what he just said. That is not the same as our deciding not to let into the country someone whose views fall short of the Home Office guidance.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West outlined Donald Trump’s views about Mexicans and black people. Do not forget that Donald Trump ran a dog-whistle campaign to see Barack Obama’s birth certificate to find out whether the President of America is really American. Imagine what would happen if, in the mother of Parliaments, my colleagues decided to question ethnic minority MPs about whether they are really British.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
We find ourselves in the ridiculous position where some people are so outraged that Donald Trump has suggested that people should be banned simply because of their beliefs that those people want to ban him for his beliefs.
Across the pond, Donald Trump has been waging what might be described as a one-man campaign against political correctness for some time now. As someone who has had their own campaign against political correctness for some time here in this Parliament, nobody will be surprised to hear that I can relate to that. In the race to become the next President, he has been gaining support with a political manner that could be described as “blunt directness”. He is definitely straight-talking and, as a Yorkshireman, I certainly applaud him for that too. In fact, I think that in this country, we could do with rather less political correctness and much more straight-talking across the board, and I think many of our constituents would agree.
We should be absolutely clear that today we are debating whether or not a man who has a chance of becoming the next President of the United States of America should be physically banned from entering the United Kingdom. By anyone’s standards, that is a rather big thing. His offence—to warrant such a call—is to suggest a ban on incoming Muslims to America until, as he puts it,
“our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”
It is extremely clear that in the western world we are experiencing very difficult and dangerous times. Violent attacks are becoming all too frequent inside free countries, perpetrated by those who seek to replace freedom with religious conformity. The sickening march of Islamic State is something that all right-thinking people are deeply worried about. It is also clear that one path for terrorists and those who hate our way of living in our western countries is to enter as immigrants and refugees.
Determining what to do about that clear and worrying problem will obviously result in people having differing suggested solutions. Some people—if I may be so bold, in all our constituencies—will agree with Donald Trump’s view and some will disagree. As it happens, I disagree with his view, but whatever people think, surely he should be entitled to have that opinion and to express it, and to give all those people who have that view a voice in the political process.
There was an opinion poll on the matter, which showed that in the United Kingdom, 65% disagreed with Donald Trump and 24% agreed with him. When that was moved into the north of the country, the amount of people who agreed with him went from 24% to 35%. By anybody’s standards, that is a significant body of the population. Lots of people in this room who are always talking about the rights of minorities seem very quiet all of a sudden when people who have a minority opinion have the nerve to express it. What about the rights of those minorities in this country? It is amazing that the people who always preach about tolerance, saying that we should not have any intolerance, are always the very same people who are so intolerant of anybody who happens to have a different opinion from them.
Tommy Sheppard
Does the hon. Gentleman think there are any limits on freedom of speech? Would there come a point when someone such as Donald Trump should be banned because the words that he said were just so extreme? Many of us on the Opposition side feel that he is already inciting hatred against the Muslim community, both in this country and across the world.
Philip Davies
I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s analysis, but yes, there do need to be some restrictions on free speech. If people are inciting violence or terrorism, that freedom of speech should be restricted and is unacceptable, but we certainly should not go around banning everyone from the country simply for voicing an opinion that the hon. Gentleman happens to disagree with.
Mr Holloway
I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree that this motion is actually embarrassing to the UK and makes us look intolerant and totalitarian. I feel that we should almost apologise to the people of the United States. It is for them to decide on Mr Trump’s views, not us, and I think we should also remind those in America that these people over here on the Opposition Benches represent less than 1% of the population of this country.
Philip Davies
I share the sentiment behind my hon. Friend’s contribution. I think it is ridiculous, frankly, that we need to have such a debate in a country that has always prided itself on freedom and free speech.
Philip Davies
No, I will not, because other people need to speak. I am afraid that there is not time—the hon. Lady has had her say.
The real issue for me is not Donald Trump’s remarks, but the reaction to them. He is not a serious threat of harm to our society in any way. The uproar is largely because he is rich, white and politically incorrect, and that, to me, is really the crux of the issue. The debate today is actually as much to do with political correctness as it is to do with his comments. It is about the political correctness that attacks free speech—the free speech that, quite rightly, Americans hold very dear, as do many of us here in this country.
The irony is that it is, in part, because of political correctness that the straight-talking of Donald Trump has proved so popular with the electorate over there. People are fed up of being told what they can and cannot think, and what they can and cannot say, and they find it refreshing. Even whether they agree or disagree with him, they find it refreshing to find a politician who has the guts to stand up and say what he thinks, even if it is controversial and unpopular. In many cases, we should celebrate more often politicians who stand up and say things that are unpopular and controversial. It is easy for anyone to stand up and trot out something about motherhood and apple pie, and something that is popular. Any old fool can trot out all that stuff, but it takes real guts to say unpopular and controversial things, and in that regard, I have a lot of respect for the Leader of the Opposition, whose hallmark is saying unpopular and controversial things. I will always defend his right to do that too.
Many people who are tolerated in this country because we believe in free speech would be placed higher up the list of barred people than Donald Trump: those who preach their hatred of all-things British from our own soil, and those who denounce freedom generally and hate the western way of protecting our very important individual freedoms and values. The silencing of opinions that we have seen in both countries only builds up resentment that would otherwise not exist.
People in this country stand up for the rights of foreign criminals we seek to deport but cannot because of human rights laws. Many of the people who are so keen to ban Donald Trump from entering the country are exactly the people who are so keen to keep foreign criminals in this country when we want to deport them. Yet we are debating whether Donald Trump should be banned. That is ridiculous and outrageous.
I end with a point I made at the start. For anyone who is outraged that Donald Trump thinks people should be banned from this country because of their beliefs but thinks the solution is to ban Donald Trump for his beliefs is ridiculous. You couldn’t make it up, and I could not agree less if I tried.