EU Referendum: Race Hate Crime

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Karl Turner

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I want to make it clear that this Adjournment debate is not about people who voted to leave. Many good people voted to leave, as they believed we will be better off out of the European Union. Today’s debate is about the rhetoric and images used by some in the leave campaign.

Growing up as the child of Pakistani immigrants in the 1970s, I frequently received abuse such as “Go back to your country” or “You smell of curry.” Often, the words I heard were, “Go back home.” The words stung because they implied that I did not truly belong in this country. Growing up, this taunt haunted many of my generation and others as well. Words such as “Paki” and signs on doors saying, “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs” still haunt many of us.

If we fast-forward to 2016, it feels like nothing has changed. I still receive abuse, and it is not just racially motivated. I have frequently been subjected to rape and death threats online—often I am told I should be sent to Saudi Arabia to be raped and lynched—but I will not be frightened off, despite the fact that I am one of those MPs who regularly hold drop-in surgeries in my constituency and I have no idea who will come to see me. These people will not prevent me from carrying on connecting with my constituents and giving them the best service I can.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I have been contacted by my constituent Leroy Vickers, who describes four very serious incidents of racially aggravated offences. He says that in the past two days he has witnessed a man on a bus telling a passenger, “Get off the bus, Paki”, witnessed racially aggravated abuse in a takeaway, and heard a man of Jamaican descent say that for the first time since he was about five or six he is hearing the N word used regularly. What does my hon. Friend say to that?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

That is also the experience of so many of the constituents and other people who have written to me. That is why I am very grateful that I managed to get this Adjournment debate.

We have had words such as, “Go home, Polish vermin”, posted through the letterboxes of Polish residents in Cambridgeshire; heard of young Muslim school girls being cornered and intimidated, with people saying, “Get out, we voted leave” and “I can even give you a suitcase”; and seen signs in Newcastle urging the Government, “Stop immigration and start repatriation”, with words such as “This is England, we are white, get out of my country”.