Holocaust Memorial Day

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I completely share that sentiment expressed by the hon. Gentleman.

As I was saying, we are not as good as we proclaim to be. My grandfather did not feel welcome and I did not feel wanted as a nine-year-old girl. The asylum seekers who try to come here today face a similar hostile environment. They are told by leading Government politicians that they pose an “existential threat” to the west’s way of life, that they are part of a “hurricane” of mass migration, that MPs feel “besieged by asylum seekers” and that asylum seekers are “invading” Britain. We should reflect on what we say and what we do today before we exercise any moral entitlement to condemn the atrocities of the past.

The language we use today matters; the laws and practices of today designed to exclude many of those seeking freedom from persecution, which make a mockery of our commitment to the victims of genocide, matter; the fees we charge for visas today matter; and our refusal today to allow those seeking asylum to work matters. The hostility my grandfather faced in 1938 and the trepidation I felt when subjected to questioning in 1954 echo through the generations. All of this contributes to our credibility in the debate on the holocaust and subsequent genocides.

So before we applaud ourselves for keeping alive the memory of the holocaust, we should think about how fragile freedom was then for those who sought to escape death and how fragile it remains today. We must take responsibility and stand up to genocide wherever it rears its ugly head, and we must protect those who seek refuge in Britain. If we stand by while genocides unfold, or fail to protect those who need it the most, the horrors the likes of which my grandfather, father and even myself experienced will have all been for nothing. Freedom is one of our basic values, so surely we owe it to our children and our children’s children to be able to stand up and really mean it when we say, “Never again.”.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Father of the House.