Though rare, there are in England’s history examples of attempts at forcefully subverting Parliament. The tumultuous Stuart era provides three examples. On 4 January 1642, Charles I illegally entered the House of Commons with an armed force to arrest his fiercest parliamentary critics. He left empty handed as John Pym and his allies had already fled in a boat down the Thames. Almost six years and two civil wars later, Sir Thomas Fairfax’s troops purged Parliament of moderate MPs who opposed Charles I’s prosecution. The docile ‘Rump’ Parliament duly assented to Charles’ trial, and he went to the block in January 1649. The most spectacular attempt was the Gunpower Plot of 1605 in which Robert Catesby and his confederates nearly pulled off the Jacobean age’s equivalent of 9/11.
21 February 2024 will go down in history as another occasion when Parliament was subverted by the threat of physical force. For those who are not au fait with what transpired, here is a brief narrative.
That day was a Wednesday and as the nursery rhyme has it, it was a day of woe. It was an Opposition Day in Parliament-one of twenty such days annually-when opposition parties rather than the government can propose motions for debate and vote in the Commons. These motions do not lead to new legislation, but they are an expression of the Commons’ will. The Scottish National Party, fearful of Labour’s growing popularity in Scotland, seized the opportunity to expose the Labour Party’s internal divisions over the Hamas-Israel conflict. The SNP demanded an immediate ceasefire by Israel in Gaza and condemned Israel’s offensive as “collective punishment.” The Labour Party took back the initiative by submitting an amendment to this notion calling for an “immediate humanitarian cease-fire” to be observed by “all sides” and advocating a two-state solution. The government then proposed its own amendment that called for an “immediate humanitarian pause” while also declaring that Israel has the right to defend itself. In the event of the government tabling a motion on Opposition Day, it is the government’s amendment to the original opposition motion that must be debated. Labour MPs were therefore put in an impossible situation: either they voted for the extreme anti-Israel stance of the SNP or for the Conservative amendment that does not call for the kind of ceasefire demanded by Labour activists and many Muslim constituents.
Consequently, Labour MPs expressed their safety concerns to Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons. Unwilling to vote for the SNP motion, Labour MPs knew that if they did not, they would be accused of opposing a ceasefire and become the target of Islamist violence. Hoyle therefore chose to transgress parliamentary convention and allowed both the government and Labour’s amendment to be debated.
Prima facie, Hoyle’s decision looks reasonable. MPs and their families face real threats from extremists. In 2010, Stephen Timms was stabbed by Roshonara Choudhry because of his support for the Second Iraq War. In 2021 Sir David Amess was stabbed to death by Ali Harbi Ali for supporting airstrikes against Islamic State. A few weeks ago, Mike Freer, an MP with a large Jewish constituency, decided not to seek re-election because of threats made to him and his family for his pro-Israel stance. In the light of these tragedies, does it matter if the Speaker makes a one-off decision to alter parliamentary procedure? Surely, the lives of MPs and their nearest and dearest are worth it?
Of course, MPs and their families must come to no harm, but appeasing Islamists is not the solution for they can never be appeased. Their goal is to make Britain an Islamist nation and they will not rest until that is the case. They know without question Allah’s will and would impose theocracy on this country if it were in their power to do so. Changing how Parliament operates serves only to encourage their zeal. What then are the solutions?
First, Britain’s media elites need to stop playing down the Islamist threat for fear of causing offence. Take the egregious example of the BBC calling Salman Abedi, the Manchester Arena bomber, an ‘extremist’ without specifying that he was a devotee of Al Qaeda and ISIS. If an Islamist blows himself up at a concert for children and kills twenty-two people, including an eight-year-old child, then have the courage to call him what he is-an Islamist-rather than show contempt for the dead by playing politically correct language games.
The police, and particularly the Metropolitan Police, need to stop their two-tiered policing in which counter demonstrators to pro-Palestine marches are warned they will be arrested for antagonising the crowds whilst those among the marchers shouting for the destruction of Israel are ignored for the sake of community relations. If protestors project onto Big Ben the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea’, police officers ought not to be standing by and excusing their inaction because in their opinion such a phrase can have meanings other than the genocide of Israel. They are obliged to arrest those they have reason to suspect are inciting violence and let a judge decide if a felony has been committed.
MPs’ security, particularly when in their homes and constituency offices, must have the police’s priority. If democracy is to work, elected representatives must be able to perform their duties and vote according to their consciences without any fear of threat and intimidation. MPs ought to pass legislation that makes it an offence specifically to target elected representatives at whatever level of government and their co-workers and which carries with it severe penalties. Any individual convicted of the intimidation of politicians and counsellors, whose appeal has failed and who is a migrant seeking citizenship or asylum ought to be deported immediately. Such an individual does not deserve citizenship in a liberal democracy.
Britain has homegrown Islamists, but their ranks are enlarged by mass immigration. It is time that Britain ditches mass migration and operates selective immigration that favours highly skilled immigrants over the low skilled and no skilled. Those with higher levels of education are less likely to be radicals, although that is not always the case. Take, for instance, those NHS doctors who have been found to be leaders and supporters of Islamist organisations. To deplete the extremists’ ranks, migrants from those parts of the world most affected by Islamism should not be allowed entry to Britain. That will mean that genuine asylum seekers from those countries will not find refuge in Britain, but the time has come to put first the safety of British people who will suffer more and greater acts of terrorism if Britain continues to be a haven for murderous maniacs.
None of what I have written ought to be taken as anti-Muslim. Allowing Islamists into Britain does no favours to the millions of British Muslims who just want to go about their lives enjoying the freedom to practise their religion and make a living. It is the fanatics who get mainstream Muslims a bad name and furnish Islamophobes with spurious excuses to attack them. It is time also to recognise the excellent work done by imams in reporting extremists to police and banning them from mosques. These men do this at the risk of their lives. With a growing number of extremists, it is probably becoming more difficult for Muslim community leaders to police their communities.
What these disturbing events teach us is the paradox of multiculturalism, the secular idol of Britain’s metropolitan and media elites at whose altar the rest of Britain is expected to bow. Mass immigration, begun by that devotee to diversity, Tony Blair, and aided and abetted by a series of governments since, has made Britain more multicultural than ever in its existence. Yet, mass immigration brings to Britain people who are violently intolerant of multiculturalism, namely Islamists. The idea that they magically transform into card carrying liberals once they have crossed the English Channel is naivety on the level of delusion. It is time to keep such individuals far away from our shores.
