Anti-Semitism

Amber Rudd Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)]

This has been an extraordinary and harrowing debate, full of powerful personal experiences. The Government are taking a lot of action to combat anti-Semitism, but I want to tell Members that I will leave the Chamber today even more committed to checking that we are doing all we can and stepping it up where we can.

Many Members have thanked the Community Security Trust, which does such great work. I want to put on record our thanks to the trust. We gave it £13.4 million recently to make sure it can continue its good work.

I also thank a number of the police forces who have been so good at protecting people and making sure that they are well looked-after under this growth of anti-Semitism, which so many politicians have unfortunately been experiencing. I also thank the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies of British Jews for their work in raising awareness of anti-Semitism.

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way and allowing me, as co-chair of the all-party group on British Jews, to pay tribute to the work of the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council. Let there be no doubt in any quarter of this Chamber that in Jewish schools, Jewish community centres and shuls in my constituency, it is the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council who speak for the vast majority of British Jews, who are horrified by what they have seen in the Labour party and who I fear will be horrified by the response from our Front Benchers to this debate today.

[Amber Rudd]

I totally endorse what the hon. Gentleman just said. I apologise for the fact that I cannot mention everybody who spoke so powerfully today, but I thank my Conservative colleagues for their contributions, and particularly the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who spoke so powerfully about his experience. His description of the air tightening is something that I will always remember.

However, this afternoon’s debate really belongs to the Labour party, and its Members who spoke so passionately from their own experiences and did not hold back from bravely and courageously sharing them with us. Many of us have heard about some of those, but nothing compared to hearing their personal experiences today. The sheer horror and scale of what they have had to put up with has horrified the whole House.

I particularly thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), who spoke so powerfully of her experience, and of course, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who is well known in this House for his ability to speak freely. As he rightly said, that is not always so welcome, but in this case it was completely welcome. He stands in a position of such authority because he has campaigned so long on this issue, and I say to him that yes, we all stand in solidarity with him.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) described so strongly her personal experience and her appalling description of the term “weaponising anti-Semitism”. Again, we share her view and her constituents are fortunate to have such a strong and courageous Member of Parliament. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who spoke so strongly and referred to the danger of the Facebook groups that can provide such succour and comfort when anti-Semitism is being passed around. It is important that she carefully drew that out as one of the danger areas.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) also has such a strong history of speaking out so often against anti-Semitism, and spoke of her horror that the Labour party has become a home for it. I also thank the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), who put this in such an important personal and historical context. We could have heard a pin drop when she spoke about that. Finally, the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) reinforced the horror, which we share, of people in his party getting angry with people who call out anti-Semitism rather than focusing on the people who are anti-Semitic. It is something that we all wonder at.

This has been an extraordinary and important debate. I believe that the whole House has delivered a strong message to the leader of the Labour party: take action. The leader’s words have been strong, and they have been heard again and again, but we have not seen the action that we hoped would follow. If the leader of the Labour party is in any doubt about that, I urge him to listen to the speeches that were made by the people behind him. They were powerful, emotional and harrowing speeches that were not in any way anti-Labour. Many speakers went out of their way to explain that they had joined the Labour party to combat racism and anti-Semitism. The Labour party is a noble and honourable party, and it is absolutely wrong that this corner of anti-Semitism has been allowed to flourish. He has an obligation to take action. We expect nothing less.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered anti-semitism.