Prime Minister's Role in Creating a Safe Environment

Debate between Stella Creasy and Kevin Foster

Thursday 26th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I think it is safe to say, as you yourself reflected, Mr Speaker, that the Brexit process has provoked passions and arguments and debate, but I think where the Prime Minister is very clear is that his view is the way to deal with this, and the Government’s view is that we should ensure that we deliver Brexit on 31 October 2019.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The challenge of what the Minister is saying is that this is not actually about Brexit, and nor, for many of us, is this about how we make this stop. If we want to do that we need to understand where it starts, and how the extremists on all sides of our political culture will trump proudly about how they might stand at Cable Street to defend people’s rights, or will listen to Steve Bannon and disagree with him, but have absolutely no understanding or comprehension of how we get to a Cable Street or how we get to a Steve Bannon in the first place. The danger with the Prime Minister’s conduct last night is that it is feeding a culture and a language that normalise extremism, so that those of us who have had “Traitor!” shouted at us in the street, as well as online—because the online and the offline are no different—experience this as “the heat of the kitchen” rather than as language that does nobody any favours in our democracy.

The most important thing the Minister can do now is go and listen to what we are missing, because this does not affect everyone equally. We are still going to have white men of a certain age, with independent means, in our politics. It is the young people, the women, the people from minority communities, who are already saying they are not going to take part in our politics, not because they have already experienced the rape threats and the death threats, the bomb threats and the intimidation, but because they see it. When the trolls are in Parliament, how do we stop feeding the trolls?

[Kevin Foster]

As the hon. Lady outlines, what is important is that we get the message out there that action is being taken, not just online—as she said, the law applies online as it does offline—and that we tell people that they have a place here, that they can make a difference and that their votes count. Ultimately, the longer indecision goes on on one issue—Brexit—the more there will be frustrations, but that does not justify people crossing the line of abuse in hatred and intimidation. It needs to be clear that the same legal standard will apply, at whichever extreme people are. There are two sides of the same coin of hate.