Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me to speak in this debate on the middle east and security matters. I am sorry that I have been nipping in and out of the Chamber.
It is important to get my concerns on the record, and I will be brief. I am greatly concerned about the impact that events in the middle east are having on our country, and about how these events are being perverted to give licence to hate. As a tolerant society, we cannot tolerate British people hating British people on the basis of the faith they are born into or choose to follow. I am deeply disturbed by the personal letters I have received from a number of my Jewish constituents—I have only 250 of them—expressing their distress at what the future holds in the UK for them and their families.
These are British citizens who have as much to do with the middle east as I do. It is not right that synagogues now have to be protected by security guards and that
banners are being seen and chants are being heard that say, “Kill all Jews”, “Hitler was right” and “Death to all Jews”. This situation is not tolerable. There are no excuses.