Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Jeremy Corbyn
Main Page: Jeremy Corbyn (Independent - Islington North)Department Debates - View all Jeremy Corbyn's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(1 day, 23 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Lisa Nandy
I am happy to join the right hon. Member in calling that out.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that, in coming to the decision, the authorities in Birmingham took account of the behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans on many other occasions in many other places and decided it was unsafe for the match to be played in Birmingham? It is absolutely not about banning Jewish people, or any other people, from going to the match or going to Birmingham. Can we separate the issue about the behaviour of a group of fans from the wider question of how everybody—whether Jewish, Muslim or anything else—must be safe to walk the streets of this country?
Lisa Nandy
On the right hon. Member’s last statement —that everybody must be safe to walk the streets of this country—I agree with him. Perhaps he might make that point to the people he now associates with on his left and right, because that is not what we have heard from them in the last few weeks.
Can I just clear this up? I have heard a lot of hot takes on social media about the evidence on which the police relied to come to their decision. It is right to say that the police, as we would expect, took into account in particular the game in Amsterdam at which Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were present and where a small element caused the most appalling disorder, but they also took into account the real risks presented to Maccabi Tel Aviv fans on the basis that Maccabi Tel Aviv are an Israeli team and many of the fans who would attend are Jewish. I hope that the right hon. Member will be as exercised about that as he is about the behaviour of those fans.