Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office
Wednesday 25th February 2026

(1 day, 8 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
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Keir Starmer Portrait The Prime Minister
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I am proud of the Equality Act, which was passed by the last Labour Government; we will always fight for working people. Compare that to Reform, who want to go back to the dark days, when people could be discriminated against because of who they are—ripping up protections for workers and renters, and ending the right of grieving parents to take a few days off work if the worst should ever happen to their child.

I also have to raise this: a death threat against my hon. Friend, the brilliant Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet), was shared by Reform’s deputy council leader in Lancashire. It said that she “should be shot”. When death threats were made against the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), I stood at this Dispatch Box and condemned them outright. If he has any decency or backbone, he will stand up, apologise, condemn the comments, and sack the individual in his party. Will he do so?

Nigel Farage Portrait Nigel Farage (Clacton) (Reform)
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At the age of 14, Michel Mandarin was forcibly removed from his home, the coral atoll of Île du Coin, dumped on the quayside in Mauritius, and forced to live on food scraps out of bins. He has resettled on those islands, yet he now faces a removal order from yet another Labour Government. Maybe twice in one lifetime, he is going to be asked to leave his homeland. Can I ask the Prime Minister this? This Government are full of human rights lawyers, within and without; why do the opinions and human rights of indigenous Chagossians not matter to him at all?

Keir Starmer Portrait The Prime Minister
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So the hon. Gentleman has neither the decency nor the backbone to condemn a death threat against a Member of this House, whichever party they are in. He does not have the decency or the backbone to condemn it and sack the individual. That just shows that his party has nothing to offer the country but grievance and division. Look at its candidate in Gorton and Denton—a man who says that anyone who is not white cannot be English. No wonder he has been endorsed by Tommy Robinson. That does not represent our country, and anybody who wants to stand against that hatred and division should vote Labour on Thursday—tomorrow—in Gorton and Denton.