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Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for asking me to follow that. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in support of a Bill that I referred to in my maiden speech almost a month ago. I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Dewsbury (Mr. Malik) and for Copeland (Mr. Reed) on making their maiden speeches this evening. My contribution to this debate falls into two sections. First, why is there a need for this legislation? Secondly, I want to deal with some of the concerns raised by Members of this Chamber and by others outside it. Our country has a good track record of positive relations between different races, cultures and religions stretching back hundreds of years. Prophesies made by former Members of this House about race riots leading to rivers of blood have proved to be grossly false and nothing more than scaremongering. However, life in the UK for some is far from utopian. Pockets of our community are suffering and parts of it are less equal than others. There are some in our community—thankfully, a small minority—who exploit circumstances to incite hatred against the most vulnerable, knowing that they will get away with it. It was a Labour Government, in the face of huge opposition, who first introduced race relations legislation in this country in 1968. A Conservative Government introduced the Public Order Act 1986, which contains the current law outlawing incitement to racial hatred. Parliamentarians, academics and commentators—I am afraid that I found no examples of comedians—all bemoaned and criticised the need for those new laws. It was said that they would stifle robust debate and destroy the centuries-old tradition of freedom of speech, and that it was political correctness gone mad. No one today is seriously suggesting that inciting hatred against blacks is acceptable—of course it should be against the law. The courts were right to interpret those laws to give protection to the followers of mono-ethnic faiths such as Judaism and Sikhism. Those laws, which were so contentious, have made a real difference to the lives of black and ethnic-minority people in Britain. They did not just stop the abuse; they made us feel full citizens of this, our country. This Bill is about trying to close a loophole that far-right groups are well aware of, and outlawing incitement against the followers—the followers—of multi-ethnic faiths. In the last few years, the far right have cynically and deliberately been targeting British Muslims. ““Freedom””, the British National party magazine, has explained the loophole to its readers. An article under the headline, ““Police drop a clanger”” said that a supporter who repeatedly displayed a copy of an ““Islam out of Britain”” poster in his window was arrested, questioned and charged with ““incitement to racial hatred””. The article continues:"““The snag for the police, however, is that Muslims are not covered by anti-free speech race law . . . it’s legal to say anything you want about Muslims, even far more extreme things””." Incidentally, that person sued the police for wrongful arrest. Far right groups no longer—thank God!—have posters saying, ““Blacks out of Britain”” or ““Jews out of Britain””. Why? Because they know that they would be committing a criminal offence. They know that creating such an atmosphere by inciting hatred is unlawful. However, they have no such qualms in respect of Muslims. Vulnerable communities who are at the receiving end of the violence that religious and racial hatred can lead to have no problems with hate language being censored, or with the environment in which such harassment or violence takes place being challenged. Let us be clear that we are not talking about gagging comedians—the jokes and gags can go on. We are talking about hatred creating an atmosphere in which Muslim women—British women, some of them white—wearing a hijab or scarf are spat at, insulted, sworn at and even hit.