It needs to be proportionate.

Liz Webster

If you look at a Tommy Robinson march, I find it particularly worrying and threatening. I was born in this country, and it is not obvious from my colouring that I come from a mixed heritage. I can only imagine how scary it must be for others to see those protests unfold. As I said, my son was hurt; he survived a severe attack with a hammer to his head. I felt that violence perpetrated on my son, and I felt the racial backlash of what happened and the fear of one community wanting to take it out on another. That is what brought me into activism, fear of that unfolding and violence where people are unsafe. That is how I take my view. If you are too focused on one word or one person who does not know how to behave, you are losing the plot in terms of trying to make communities safer and feeling as if we are working and functioning better.

Rahila Gupta

I do not have much to add to what has already been said, except to caution against rolling “causing offence” into “incitement to hatred”. I think this is the problem. As a society, we have become very sensitive to what is offensive and what is not. We have lost some of the robustness that I remember from my early days of political organising, where we said things to people and people took it in the right spirit in debate. Now you have to be very careful how you speak. We have moved into an era where offence can very easily be given and taken, and I think that should not be part of any legislative consideration.

Chair

Thank you. The final question is from Afzal Khan.

Afzal Khan

We are finally at the last question. The question is to you, Peter. At the end of April, the independent reviewer of terrorism and state threats legislation called for a moratorium on pro-Palestinian marches due to concerns over them incubating antisemitism. What is your response to that proposal?

Peter Leary

There are two dangerous conflations there, and there is something to be said about the particular context of that moment, of that march that we are talking about. The two dangerous conflations are: on the one hand, conflating protests with unrelated acts of violence. This came in the wake of the attack in Golders Green that, as far as I know, was not linked to any protest in any way. There is no reason to believe that the individual involved had any links to any form of protest. That conflation builds on other conflations of protests with terrorism that we have seen, such as the proscription of Palestine Action, but it is particularly dangerous in this context, where we start conflating political dissent with terrorism. The second conflation is between Israel and the actions of the state of Israel with Jewish people and Jewish communities in this country. We are absolutely and consistently clear that Jewish people are not responsible for the crimes of the State of Israel. That is our consistent and clear message. In fact, many Jewish people are involved in the very marches that this moratorium was proposed against. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Jewish people marching as part of an organised Jewish bloc, Jewish speakers on the platform, Jewish people among the key organisers. On several occasions, the marches have been addressed by Holocaust survivors—perhaps before some of the largest audiences Holocaust survivors have ever addressed in this country—to send out a very clear message. We are ensuring that that is the message that we are sending out. The idea that the marches could be incubators of antisemitism seems absurd. An antisemite would find our demonstrations a very uncomfortable place to be, because of the messages and the make-up of those marches and protests. Indeed, anyone who believed in any form of bigotry would feel that way, because these protests bring together people from all backgrounds and every walk of life. That particular statement was made in the run-up to our Nakba Day demonstration, which is an annual event commemorating the displacement of Palestinians from their homeland since 1948. It is a very solemn occasion and particularly important to the Palestinian community. I do not know whether the independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation consulted with, or took into consideration the feelings or sentiments of, the Palestinian community, because it is also a kind of national day on which Palestinians mark their identity. This was a very important march. Every year, the march is led by Palestinian children along with, what are by now, very elderly Nakba survivors. It is very important that we continue to commemorate that in that way. It also came on the day that Tommy Robinson had called on his far-right supporters to come out into the streets. He has called on his supporters to attack our marches before. I believe he likely called on his supporters to come out on the day of the Nakba march in order to try to drive the Palestine solidarity movement off the streets, because he hates to see Muslims and immigrants alongside Jewish people and LGBT people—and all the others who represent everything he stands against—taking part in a protest. Had there been such a moratorium imposed, it would have been a victory for Tommy Robinson and the far right. Our response was to continue with our protest, and I think that was the right thing to do.

Chair

Thank you. I would like to thank all of the panel and, with that, I close the session.