Anti-Semitism

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing the debate. Although I would not want to go into a dark alley with him to discuss party funding, I would be on the barricades with him on this issue. Often, when I look at people, I wonder who would be first to lead the resistance if there ever was, God forbid, a dictatorship, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would be right there. The work he has done over a number of years, which I watched before I was elected to the House, will be remembered by the Jewish community.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer). I know his constituency well because I grew up there. His community is very lucky that he is its representative and specialises in these issues.

As I have always seen it, there are three kinds of anti-Semitism. First, there is the low-level, under-the-carpet discrimination. It is the kind of anti-Semitism that happens at a dinner party. A person walks outside the room, and someone says, “Let’s give him a ham sandwich.” Everyone titters, but when he goes back into the room he does not know that anything has happened. That dinner-party anti-Semitism also manifests itself in harsh criticism of Israel, which is out of all proportion to the criticism of any other country. Given that it is out of proportion, I would argue that it is sometimes used as a fig leaf by people who just do not like Jews.

Secondly, there is skinhead anti-Semitism: thugs smashing up graveyards, violence and intimidation, and the criminal damage done to synagogues around the world. Dare I say it, that is the easiest kind of anti-Semitism to deal with because we at least know what we are dealing with.

Today, however, the most worrying, pernicious, dogmatic and dangerous form of anti-Semitism comes from extreme Islamism. Yes, it is true that extreme Islamists do not just attack Jews—the massacre of 21 Christians in Egypt on new year’s day is a tragic reminder of that. As we know, the free world faces a major assault on its values. Whether we are talking about Baha’is in Iran, Christians in Egypt or Jews in Israel and elsewhere in the world, the extreme Islamists believe that theirs is the only view that deserves to survive. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and 7/7 were not just attacks on Britain and America, but were explicitly designed as an assault on western civilisation itself.

Islamism, by the way, should never be confused with Islam. Islam is a religion, practised by millions of citizens. Islamism, however, is a revolutionary political doctrine, supported by a small minority, whose aim is to overthrow democratic Government and replace it with religious autocracy.

I raised the threat posed by Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitism in early-day motion 1145. Today, however, I want to focus on the problem of extreme Islamism in the UK. I want to make four key points. First, numerous factions and splinter groups, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, operate in the UK. They call for the eradication of Israel, but they have not been banned. Moderate Muslims, Jews, Christians and members of all parties have called for the Government to proscribe Hizb ut-Tahrir because its website, leaders and literature frequently promote racism and anti-Semitism, call suicide bombers “martyrs” and urge all Muslims to kill Jewish people. Hizb ut-Tahrir is an extremely destructive group, which should no longer be appeased.

Secondly, there is extremism in universities. Late last year MI5 identified as many as 39 university campuses as vulnerable to violent extremism. The London School of Economics, as has been mentioned, has increasingly serious problems not just with students but with its professional staff. The involvement, for example, of Dr John Chalcraft and Professor Martha Mundy with its middle east centre is worrying. Those two senior LSE academics are extreme advocates of the movement to boycott Israel on the international stage. As the organisation Student Rights has shown, they have a track record of intense hostility to Israel and the Jewish people. As with many so-called study centres for the middle east, much of the funding flows from mysterious trusts and foundations in Islamic dictatorships, whose accounts are not transparent. A further example is the LSE’s Palestine society, which is soon to host a visit by Ahron Cohen, a leading anti-Zionist, whose conference expenses are usually paid for by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, and who stated in The Sunday Times that the Jews who died in the holocaust deserved it. Those people do not help the debate. They do not promote peace, and the LSE has a duty to explain why it allows those things to continue.

Thirdly, there is radicalisation in some mosques. I recently had the privilege of going to Kurdistan with the all-party group on the Kurdistan region in Iraq. The Prime Minister of Kurdistan told me that he had been to England and visited a mosque in the north; he said that if he had seen that kind of mosque in Kurdistan he would have shut it down overnight, because of its aggressive and intolerant teachings. Kurdistan is very progressive, and supportive of the Jewish community. We all know the reports that Richard Reid and Jermaine Lindsay who triggered the King’s Cross explosion on 7/7 spent considerable time together at Brixton mosque in south London.

Finally, and most alarmingly, there is a creeping culture of appeasement in Whitehall. Whether that is a push to create artificial Muslim organisations, such as the Muslim Council of Britain, or civil servants going out of their way to appease radical Islamists, it is a major worry.

[Mrs Ellman]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that the anti-Semitism that he describes is rarely opposed by those who declare themselves anti-racist?

[Robert Halfon]

As always, the hon. Lady puts her finger on the button. She has a strong track record in dealing with those issues, and I agree with her completely.

Hon. Members may recall that last autumn the director general of the office for security and counter-terrorism, Mr Charles Farr, was reported as pledging his support for the extremist Mr Zakir Naik to enter the country. That was in complete opposition to the views of the Home Secretary, who barred Mr Naik from entering the UK. We also hear in the news today that Ken Livingstone is now an employee of the Iranian Government’s English propaganda channel, Press TV.

What are the effects of extremist culture in the UK? One consequence, which I raised with the Prime Minister, is that Britain has become an exporter of terrorism. From Afghanistan to Sweden to Israel, extreme Islamists from the UK have been travelling abroad with the intention of causing mayhem and murder. Closer to home, we all remember the attack on the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). In the Jewish community there is a constant climate of fear. There are growing reports, as has been mentioned, of Jewish students being spat at and beaten up, and having their rooms vandalised, and the incidence of recorded anti-Semitic events on university campuses has spiked in recent years. The CST recorded nearly 1,000 major anti-Semitic incidents in 2009—the highest annual total since it began records in 1984. Guards are now posted outside many synagogues and Jewish schools. Hate literature and terrorist propaganda are now sold openly in many book stalls or religious outlets.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend as a friend who many years before coming to the House helped me to gain an understanding of the impact of anti-Semitism within the Jewish community. Does he agree that there is no room for complacency in our universities and schools? That was brought home to me this week when my son came home feeling concerned, and unable to understand why his locker had been etched with the words “Jew” and “gay”. That is a horrible but timely reminder, as we approach Holocaust memorial day, of the deep and evil hatred and intolerance at the root of the holocaust, which we must counter today as we have in the past.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend, who spent many a Friday night at my house in our childhood, and who knows a lot about the Jewish community, is exactly right. He has been a great friend of the Jewish community for many years. What happened to his son is a tragic symbol of an incident that happens all too often. I should mention that the kind of people concerned do not just attack Jews; they then move on to the next thing. It is noteworthy that the words written were “Jew” and also “gay”.

The usual excuse for what is happening is the state of Israel, or the Iraq war. That is the reason that we are given for Islamism. However, I believe that that worldwide movement of extreme intolerance uses Israel and Gaza as an excuse for anti-Semitism and violence. Of course there are difficulties between the Israelis and Palestinians, but that is not the root cause of extremism. The reality is that even if the Gaza conflict were to be solved tomorrow, with Israel retreating mostly to 1967 borders, the Roshonara Choudhrys of this world would still exist. The objective of extreme Islamists is not a peaceful resolution to the middle east situation, but jihad; it is an ideology that believes that Israel and, by extension, Jews should be wiped off the map. President Ahmadinejad, as I have mentioned, makes no local distinction between the west bank and Tel Aviv. It is the catch-all Zionist entity that must be destroyed. When Ehud Barak offered almost everything to Yasser Arafat at Camp David in 2000, far from discouraging Islamists, it emboldened them. Extreme Islamism exists because of dogma and ideology, not policy goals. Our public institutions must stop appeasing that threat.

There are now security guards outside many synagogues and Jewish schools for 24 hours a day. The Education Secretary has had to spend £2 million to fund tighter security measures for Jewish faith schools in the state sector. Is it tolerable in a free democracy that a religious minority is under threat? I remember being in a London synagogue—not as recently as I should have been—where the rabbi said to the congregation “Please do not congregate outside, because of the terrorist threat.” That was in London. I thought, “How can it be that you go to synagogue and cannot walk outside, like any normal religious faith, and chat outside with family and friends?” When I think about it, it makes me weep. I thought it was wrong of the rabbi to say it, despite the security threat, because we do not live in 1930s Germany. We live, proudly, in the Britain of 2011.

I welcome the Government’s response to the all-party inquiry into anti-Semitism, which contained many strong and positive measures, such as the £2 million from the Education Secretary to protect Jewish faith schools in the state sector, and £750,000 to educate British students about the holocaust, through organisations such as the Holocaust Educational Trust. I did not agree with the previous Prime Minister on much, but I very much respect the work that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) did in that respect. However, at the same time there is quite a lot of Sir Humphrey—or perhaps in this case Sir Humphrey Cohen—with draft scoping documents, diagnostic toolkits, cross-Government working groups, focus polls of staff and students about their experiences of higher education, self-audit performance schemes, conferences, and stakeholder engagement forums. I am sure that some of that will be valuable, but the original report of the all-party inquiry put a heavy emphasis on the problems on university campuses, and that is where the Government need to take bold action.

The academic Michael Burleigh wrote in The Spectator, in January 2010:

“Waffling on about free speech and forming committees is no way to deal with nascent terrorists”.

He went on:

“Last weekend, it was revealed that British students have been visiting Somalia to fight for the extremist group Al-Shabab…while the Sunday Telegraph reported that Yayha Ibrahim, an extremist preacher barred from America and Australia, was planning a speaking tour of British campuses. This just weeks after underpants bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, an alumnus of University College London, attempted to murder 289 people on a Christmas Day flight to Detroit.”

The writing is on the wall. The problem is clear. If we delay action, we will allow it to continue. The poison of extreme Islamism is not something that can be talked into submission or bubble-wrapped in bureaucracy. Its imams are preaching the most ideological and embittered form of anti-Semitism in the UK. The fundamental right of Israel to exist and of Jewish families to live in peace should not be a matter for debate.

The Education Secretary has often said that a democracy can be judged by how a country treats its Jews, and I completely agree with him. When it comes to extremism and anti-Semitism, the time for words and appeasement is over. Extreme Islamic groups must be proscribed. Hate preachers must be prevented from coming to the UK by a zero-tolerance policy. The Charity Commission needs to improve the monitoring of these extreme groups’ finances, as many have charitable fronts. Finally, there must be a financial penalty for university campuses that do not put their house in order.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

In trying to tackle race hate on campus, does the hon. Gentleman not agree that more needs to be done to prevent blame shifting from university authorities to the student unions?

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Lady is exactly right. The blame lies squarely with the university authorities for allowing this sort of thing to go on.

Finally, as Golda Meir once said, pessimism is a luxury that no Jew can allow himself or herself. I do not want to be pessimistic, but I am very worried. I hope that the Government will respond with real action to some of the suggestions that I and other hon. Members have made today.

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[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott). I am sure that the sympathy of all Members across the House goes out to him for what he had to experience during the general election campaign. As someone who has represented an inner-city Belfast seat for many years, both at local level in the Northern Ireland Assembly and here at Westminster, I can empathise with the personal security issues he has experienced. The business of police protection is all too familiar to many of us from Northern Ireland who have been the subject of various direct attacks and threats. I therefore fully sympathise with the hon. Gentleman, and heartily endorse his call for a more explicit Government response on the election campaigns. I also endorse what the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) said on that issue, and congratulate him and the other Members who secured this very important debate.

The hon. Member for Ilford North mentioned education, and I join those who have praised the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust, which is extremely important. This week, the opportunity has been afforded to Members in the House to sign the book of commitment, which honours those who perished during the holocaust and supports the sharing and safeguarding of untold stories so that we can learn from the experiences of survivors.

Like the hon. Member for Ilford North, I had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau recently, as part of a group from Northern Ireland involved in a project entitled “The thin end of the wedge”, run by the charity Forward Learning. I was greatly moved as I stood there with people from communities in Northern Ireland that have been ravaged by sectarianism, violence, indifference and hatred over the years. The project is designed to encourage community activists to get involved in what is a unique learning experience, and to positively tackle sectarianism, racism and anti-Semitism in Northern Ireland by learning from the past, including from this most extreme example of hatred against another people—the holocaust—on the very site of the worst atrocity that humanity has ever inflicted on a people.

The project, run by the tireless director and great worker, Frank Higgins, and by Drew Haire, who works with the charity, has been supported by the EU, and has received money from other sources as well. It was very moving for me to stand there with those folk, and very graphically see at first hand what racism and anti-Semitism can, and did, lead to. Education in schools and universities, and beyond that in communities, as exemplified by that project in Northern Ireland, is extremely important, and I heartily endorse the work that “The thin end of the wedge” does in my constituency, and in my community.

Before I deal with some wider issues, I want to say that in the United Kingdom we have not had the extremes of anti-Semitism that other countries have had. Nevertheless, it is there, and Members have referred to the role that this country now sadly plays as a hotbed of Islamist extremism. It unfortunately seems to attract an awful lot of that, and to export hatred and violence to a greater extent than other countries. In Northern Ireland, however, we have the unique experience of our troubled past and perhaps we have something to contribute. Organisations such as the British National party, which is trying to organise and recruit in Belfast in particular, feed on the usual grievances and try to use them to engender support, and it has been excellent to see the reaction of communities in Belfast to those attempts. The BNP made a recent attempt outside one of our main football grounds to get support, organise people and get them to sign petitions, ostensibly about an issue with which most local people would agree. However, there was a strong reaction from the football supporters, the club, the local community and elected representatives across the board, and it was greatly appreciated by Jewish representatives and others in Belfast.

On the other hand, a number of organisations associated with the extreme left and Hamas have issued pro-Hamas propaganda. Again, people have pointed out, not least in the Northern Ireland Assembly, that the idea of twinning local schools through the Hamas Ministry of Education risks poisoning the minds of children in Northern Ireland. There is little chance that those children will learn any Jewish narratives or the truth about life under the Hamas regime for women, Christians, homosexuals and others.

I will be brief, as I know that others want to speak. On a more general application of the issues that we are discussing, as the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) said, Islamist propaganda and activity are the greatest threat today in terms of anti-Semitism. We know all about the far right, but there is almost a consensus that the far right is beyond the pale. However, Islamist propaganda and activities seem to be tolerated. People are careful not to say “Jew” or “Jewish” explicitly; instead, anti-Zionist or anti-Israel language and activities are substituted for what is effectively anti-Semitism.

[Robert Halfon]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point in his speech. One thing that has always astounded me is that, at demonstrations about the conflict in the middle east, people walk around in T-shirts that say, “We are all Hezbollah now”. It is, whatever one’s views about the conflict, a symptom that they are willing to associate themselves with extremism and fundamentalism.

[Mr Dodds]

That is absolutely right. The fact of the matter is that Hezbollah and Hamas are not just anti-Israel but exist explicitly to wipe out Israel completely and, by extension, Jews. People who associate themselves with that are making it clear that they are part of anti-Semitism. That needs to be said and exposed, but it is not said as clearly as it should be. Debates such as this are useful in highlighting that.

I reinforce the point that criticism of Israel, as the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) said, is absolutely legitimate and perfectly acceptable. There are people within Israel and the Knesset who criticise Israeli policy and foreign policy all the time. What verges on anti-Semitism, though, is the disproportionate singling out of Israel for the sort of criticism that it gets, with no or disproportionately little reference to the faults, difficulties and problems of the other side. We have seen some examples recently. Unfortunately, some trade unionists from Northern Ireland went to the middle east and were vociferous when they came back in their condemnation of Israel in the most extreme terms. There was not a single reference to what Hamas was up to or what it stood for. When that was pointed out, it was of course said, “Oh, you can’t say anything against Israel, or you’re labelled an anti-Semite.” That is the accusation used against people who stand up against anti-Semitism.

Conscious of the time, I will leave my remarks there. Again, this is a timely debate, and I thank those responsible for bringing it about.

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[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Ms Clark, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann)—a long-time friend—on securing the debate. Many positive and interesting contributions have been made this afternoon, many of which I could not possibly emulate. The depth of wisdom and experience in the Chamber is so great that I found myself wondering why I was here. Then, when we heard the speech of our colleague and friend, the hon. Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott), I realised why. He spoke very movingly and, to provide some solidarity, nobody should go through what he and his family went through during the general election.

I shall concentrate on the section on the media in the report produced a few years ago by the all-party parliamentary group against anti-Semitism, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw. The group’s inquiry called on the media to have discussions on the impact of language and imagery in the current discourse on Judaism, anti-Zionism and Israel, and—while striking a balance on the independence of the media—to recognise that the way in which the news is reported has significant consequences on interaction between communities in Britain. Ministers in the previous Administration held a departmental conference on the issue. Many ideas were discussed, and the challenges and problems were recognised. I reiterate my hon. Friend’s support for an early conference, and I know that the Minister will try to follow that up if possible.

I want to talk about specific examples of anti-Semitism in the media, particularly an ongoing problem with Fox News, which is also broadcast in the United Kingdom. I shall focus in particular on the show hosted by Glenn Beck, who has been broadcasting anti-Semitic messages for a number of months. Fox News is bound by all of Ofcom’s broadcasting code, including the section entitled “Due Impartiality and Due Accuracy and Undue Prominence of Views and Opinions”. It has to have an EU licence to broadcast in the UK, and therefore has to adhere to the broadcasting code. However, I believe that the kind of content that I shall highlight would certainly not fall within the code’s remit.

I have been made aware of recent comments by Glenn Beck on his show that should be of great concern to all of us who want to stand shoulder to shoulder with colleagues such as the hon. Member for Ilford North. Although the comments were broadcast primarily in the US, it cannot and must not be forgotten that the show is also aired daily, live on Sky TV, in the UK. Glenn Beck singled out Simon Greer, the chief executive officer and president of an organisation in the US called Jewish Funds for Justice, who made comments about “advancing the common good”. Glenn Beck responded by saying that such comments

“are what led to the death camps in Germany”,

and that Simon Greer,

“as a Jew, should know better.”

Fox executives, including Fox News president, Roger Ailes, and the producer of Glenn Beck’s television show, Joel Cheatwood, assured Jewish Funds for Justice and other community representatives that they understood their concerns, that

“ultimate sensitivity must be exercised when referencing the Holocaust”,

and that they would explain them to Beck. The organisation subsequently received a handwritten note from Beck to that effect.

After the note was sent, in November 2010, Glenn Beck broadcast a three-part programme on prominent Jewish philanthropist and holocaust survivor George Soros. The programme invoked disturbing language that bore a stark resemblance to the imagery and language used by extreme right-wing groups to demonise the Jewish community in the lead-up to world war two. Glenn Beck referred to George Soros as the “puppet master” and attacked him for having escaped the holocaust and for his pro-democracy work, which he compared to Nazism.

Beck has a highly polemical style that frequently employs rhetoric drawing on the holocaust. Most shockingly, he accused Soros of having been

“a Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps.”

That provoked enormous offence among the Jewish community in the United States. Thus far, Fox News has defended that Glenn Beck special. News Corporation has been silent on the matter. These are not isolated incidents of intolerance from Beck. Indeed, in response to some of this stuff, Jewish Funds for Justice compiled the 10 most shocking statements made by Beck in his show during 2010. The organisation recently undertook an action at News Corp’s offices and presented a petition signed by more than 10,000 people that called on Rupert Murdoch to remove Glenn Beck from the Fox News station because of his comments.

I shall quote from the top 10 comments, which are not all anti-Semitic; they also attack other groups and individuals. No. 1:

“God will wash this nation with blood if he has to.”

No. 2: putting

“the common good first…leads to death camps.”

“Women are psychos.” That was No. 3. Beck’s election coverage goal was to make George Soros cry, which Beck said was “hard to do,” as Soros

“saw people into gas chambers.”

That was no. 4.

No. 5: Uncle Sam is a “child molester” who is “raping our wallets” and “destroying our families.” No. 6: Beck mocks President Obama’s daughters for “their level of education.” Beck said that

“we have been sold a lie”

that “the poor in America” are suffering. That was No. 7.

No. 8:

“Charles Darwin is the father of the holocaust.”

No. 9: social justice is a

“perversion of the Gospel…not what Jesus was saying.”

Beck likened himself to Israeli Nazi hunters, when he said:

“To the day I die, I am going to be a progressive hunter.”

That was No. 10.

I think that most colleagues would agree that those comments are highly alarming and absolutely inappropriate for broadcast on any show, let alone one that positions itself as a news show. Such comments would not fall within the parameters of the section of the Ofcom code entitled “Due Impartiality and Due Accuracy and Undue Prominence of Views and Opinions”.

In addition, the Dana Milbank column in The Washington Post reported in October 2010 that in Beck’s

“first 18 months on Fox News, from early 2009 through the middle of this year,”—

that is last year—

“he and his guests invoked Hitler 147 times. Nazis, an additional 202 times. Fascism or fascists, 193 times. The Holocaust got 76 mentions, and Joseph Goebbels got 24.”

I hope we all agree that that is a disturbing number of instances to raise those terms, in a way that is both irresponsible and does not provide any educational or beneficial basis for doing so; for instance, labelling President Obama a “Nazi.” The Holocaust Educational Trust has said:

“One of the best ways to combat anti-semitism and prejudice of all kinds is to encourage tolerance and respect twinned with advocacy of engagement with civil society and the democratic process.”

The Glenn Beck show in no way achieves those vitally important aims.

That type of journalism is dangerous and can have wide-ranging negative effects on society. The kind of material broadcast by Glenn Beck is not unique; a number of other “shock jocks” operate in the States. However, none has displayed intolerance on such a frequent and irresponsible scale as Glenn Beck. It is vital that that kind of “news” is not made or broadcast in the UK. However, the proposed acquisition of BSkyB by News Corp means that there is an increased threat of its becoming a reality.

Although the Ofcom code exists to prevent that kind of anti-Semitic language from being broadcast as news, there is still the danger of “foxification” in the UK. Professor Steven Barnett of the university of Westminster has recently argued that the laws that oversee broadcasting in the UK would prevent a re-creation of Fox News. However, it is possible that there could be a shift in the centre of gravity, and that the situation in the UK will change.

[Robert Halfon]

Although I have not seen the Glenn Beck show, I have seen other parts of Fox News, which tend to be much fairer on extreme Islamism and on Israel than other news outlets. Would the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that, whatever Glenn Beck may or may not do, Fox News—and, indeed, the Murdoch newspapers—has a good record on this?

[Mr Watson]

People tell me that Fox News is positive about Israel but negative about Jews. It is possible for Glenn Beck to represent that negative angle of Fox News. The reason why I am so concerned is that Rupert Murdoch has claimed that Sky News would be much more popular if it were more like Fox News. I do not want that to become a reality in the United Kingdom.

The issue has been picked up in the UK media recently. There have been articles on the subject by Deborah Lipstadt for The Jewish Chronicle and by Ian Burrell in The Independent. Lipstadt states:

“At the same time, Roger Ailes was interviewed by Tina Brown’s Daily Beast about NPR’s decision to fire one of its commentators, who also appears on Fox News. The commentator had said that, upon boarding a plane and seeing someone dressed in Muslim garb, he gets nervous. A silly comment but one that did not seem to warrant dismissal. Speaking of NPR officials, Ailes said: ‘They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view.’”

When a barrage of criticism rained down upon him, he apologised not to the people he called Nazis, but to Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League.

The Independent article quoted Andrew Neil, who said:

“My own view is [Fox] is out of control”.

Neil told Richard Bacon on BBC Radio 5 Live recently:

“I think Rupert Murdoch has lost control of it. I know from sources he’s not happy with a lot that appears on it and I think he’s lost over the Glenn Becks and the O’Reillys”.

In October 2009, Waitrose became one of a number of UK firms to pull all advertising on Fox News in response to comments made about President Obama. It was reported just last week that the broadcast of Glenn Beck’s show in the UK has run without any commercials for nearly 11 months in response to his incendiary comments. Such great concern has been caused by Beck that there is an ongoing campaign both in the UK and the US to stop Glenn Beck and deter companies from advertising during his show. I am pleased and extremely encouraged that companies in the UK feel strongly enough about the issue to withhold advertising. It demonstrates that the anti-Semitic and generally divisive, incendiary and prejudicial language that has been broadcast in the US will not be tolerated in this country. However, it is important that these issues continue to be raised and that TV executives are challenged on such matters.

If Glenn Beck were here today I would say to him: “Glenn Beck, you are a bigot. You bring shame to your country, not because you lack balance, but because you are an unthinking buffoon. Rupert Murdoch tolerates you because you are his useful idiot. He uses you to get a foothold in the doors of the powerful. Like his phone-hacking journalists and his pugnacious leader-writers in Australia, you are expendable. Let us hope he disposes of your nasty brand of intolerance sooner rather than later.”

It is Rupert and James Murdoch who should answer for bigots such as Glenn Beck and phone hackers such as Clive Goodman and Glen Mulcaire. They employ them. They promote them. They are responsible for them. It is time for thinking citizens in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia to unite against the Murdochs’ vicious brand of politics that masquerades as publishing.

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[Andrew Stunell]

I apologise if I overlooked that reference. The point that the hon. Lady and I—I am sure—agree on is that, of course, what has been said about university campuses is important, but so too is what may be going on in other educational establishments.

The problem was first highlighted by the all-party group’s inquiry in 2005, but progress has been harder to make on it than on some of the other issues that were raised. There are some examples of good practice, including the Manchester university code, but it is clear that that is not enough. There is a strong feeling that many individual universities and student unions have not taken these issues as seriously as they should have done; or perhaps it is not so much that they have failed to take them seriously, but that the high passions that are aroused, often by international events, have been allowed to spill over into completely unacceptable behaviour, which has not been challenged robustly and effectively. We believe that that must change.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful response, but does he not agree that the university problem is ever increasing? Will he consider taking up my suggestion that where there is extremism on campus and it is not dealt with properly by the university authorities, they should be penalised in some way, possibly financially?

[Andrew Stunell]

I do not think I want to get there yet. I was about to say that Universities UK has established an academic freedom working group. The aim of that group is to consider how universities can best protect academic freedom, freedom of speech, freedom on campus and freedom to study under the contemporary conditions of geo-political conflict, racial and religious tension and violent extremism. The Universities UK working group will include representatives from the FE sector, so it will be very wide ranging. When the report is published, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science will respond with a ministerial statement, so we are setting store by that report and will certainly respond strongly to it. I can announce today that I am asking the cross-Government working party, which I referred to initially, to take up this issue alongside its work on anti-Semitism on the internet. Those will be the two focal points of that work.

The debate is particularly timely, with Holocaust memorial week being next week. As I have said, the Government have now published our response to the report of the all-party inquiry into anti-Semitism. We have backed that response up with facts and figures in a number of cases. As has been reported in the debate, £2 million has been allocated to pay for the security of Jewish schools in the state sector. On Monday, I shall visit North Cheshire Jewish primary school, which is in the constituency adjacent to mine. I know from my previous visits to the area that the security required there is a shock to all non-Jewish visitors, who expect a primary school to be a primary school, perhaps not with open access, but certainly with friendly, welcoming access rather than high fences and armed guards. There, in a quiet suburban neighbourhood, far away from any threat of upset or trouble, one would have thought, it has proved necessary to have such high levels of security. I think that the whole House acknowledges that it is right that Jewish faith schools should have assistance with the extra protection that they need.[Official Report, 27 January 2011, Vol. 522, c. 4MC.]