Harassment in Public Life

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In a bid to accommodate colleagues on this very important matter, may I appeal to Members for brevity, and to those who arrived late not to expect to be called?

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the support that you have given to some of us who in recent days have had particular death threats and abuse because of—as has been identified by both the shadow Home Secretary and the Home Secretary—newspaper comments. I am not going to go into them at length; others can talk about that. My question to the Home Secretary is quite specific.

You, Mr Speaker, have seen quite clearly, in the two dossiers that I have presented to you, a link between a front page of The Daily Telegraph using the word “mutineers” and threats, including death threats, made to me and to other right hon. and hon. Members. Then last week, with the Daily Mail, again, specifically, you can see the link between words that are used and being called traitors, with comments like “Traitors get hanged” —or “hung”. There is lots of bad grammar. But this is serious stuff.

I commend the Home Secretary for her statement. She says that we have to call this out, and she is right. I am an old journalist as well as an old barrister. I believe in freedom of the press, but everybody has a responsibility not to incite abuse and death threats. Will the Home Secretary help us with any thoughts and plans that she might have as to how we get a more responsible press that understands its role and its public duty in doing the right thing by everybody?

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. It is distressing to hear that example, because we are beginning to see some progress from Twitter. If he would like to write to me about that particular example, I will certainly take a look at it. Abuse online is not only just as unwelcome but just as illegal as abuse offline.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, the shadow Home Secretary for her response and all hon. and right hon. Members for their remarks this afternoon.

Let us be absolutely clear: making death threats or other threats of violence will always, everywhere, without exception, be wrong. In a political context, making death threats or other threats of violence against people on grounds of their views is, whether the authors know it or not, a kind of fascism that must be explicitly and unequivocally denounced. Today, thankfully—and I am extremely grateful to colleagues across the party divide from the highest level—it has been.

You will hear me, as your Speaker, call Divisions. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) referred to the freedoms of this place, and when the Chair calls Divisions the Chair is calling on hon. and right hon. Members to vote as they think fit, and I would go so far as to say that they not only have a right to vote as they think fit but have an absolute bounden duty to vote as they think fit, and I am confident that that is what all of you—if I may speak to you very personally—do. How you vote is always a matter for you and not for me, but you must be conscious, as I am sure you are, of your duty in this matter. I want, in the light of what has been said and of the experiences of some of my colleagues in recent days, simply to conclude by saying that in voting as you think fit on any political issue, you as Members of Parliament are never mutineers. You are never traitors. You are never malcontents. You are never enemies of the people. You are dedicated, hard-working, committed public servants doing what you believe to be right for this country. If there are people who cannot understand that basic concept of principled conduct, perhaps they need help to ensure that in future they do.