Mike Freer
Reflections on Being Hounded out of His Constituency by Extremists
Mike Freer | Reflections on Being Hounded Out of His Constituency by Extremists
- Right. Well good evening everyone from London. It’s my very, very great pleasure to introduce Mr. Michael Freer. He was a member of Parliament for Finchley and Golders Green, which is the constituency I now live in, and I wish he was still the MP, from 2010 to 2020, what was it, 2004?
2010 to 2024
24, you did a long, long stint, didn’t you? And of course, he’s had many posts in the government. He was a senior government whip, he was the Minister of Exports, he was minister for inequalities, and his most recent post was the Minister for Courts and Legal Services. Previously, he’s had a long career in public service, he’d been a local counsellor and he was leader of the Borough of Barnet. But I wanted to say before we hand over to Mike, he has always been an incredible friend to the Jewish people. When I was running the London Jewish Cultural Centre and then working at JW3, whenever we needed anything, he was always there. He’s been a huge champion. And what happened to him, and the reason I’ve invited him in this particular time is that as I said to you, again, I’ve invited a lot of our lecturers to talk about their heroes or people they really respect, and I wanted Mike to come in because I have huge respect for him, and I want him to tell the story of what actually happened to him, mainly because of his courageous stance. So Mike, welcome, welcome, and thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you, Trudy. I would also point out I did actually have proper jobs before I went into public life, in fact, and I worked primarily in financial services. So I do want to point out that before I became a full-time politician, I did actually have a proper job. Thank you for inviting me. And I just wanted to talk briefly because I’d rather have a much more interactive conversation where people feel they can ask questions and we can prompt more questions from the discussion rather than me just talking at you for 40 minutes or so, not least as a former politician, it was rather strange actually I didn’t really like the sound of my own voice. But I did want to start off by saying that the decision to step down from being the member of Parliament for Finchley and Golders Green, and those of you who don’t know Finchley and Golders Green, it’s a part of North London. It’s very diverse. It has the largest Jewish population of any British constituency. At about 20% of the electorate is Jewish. Then about 10% are Muslim of the various, if what I would call flavours. And then about 8% Hindu also have a large Iranian diaspora, a large Cypriot diaspora. And so it is the most diverse and the most amazing area. And despite its diversity, it oddly rubs along incredibly well. And so my decision to step down, I don’t want to lay at the door of any one particular community, so I’ve been… people try to get me to blame the Muslim community for what I went through.
And I’ve been quite firm that I’m not going to demonise a whole community. And certainly those of you who will follow current affairs know we’re having some problems with the English Defence League in the UK at the moment. And they have certainly tried to use some of the issues with various individuals as a rallying call. And I’ve been very firm to say, whilst I’ve had a couple of run-ins with radicalised individuals, that is not my experience of the wider Muslim community in Finchley and Golders Green. So I did really want to make that quite clear from the outset. But the troubles I’ve had and then what led to me stepping down in 2024, I’ll come to, but it started off largely with my support for the community. In particular, I guess one of the first flashpoints was I was quite vocal at trying to stop extremist preachers coming into the UK because they were a sort of radicalization. And there was a local woman who was on the Gaza Flotilla who became radicalised and took great exception to my stance on trying to get a particular extremist preacher banned from coming to the UK. And that individual seemed to catch the potential of an organisation called Muslims Against Crusades. And that is now a prescribed terrorist organisation. And the main mover is a man called Anjem Choudary who is now in prison, I think he’s in prison for life, for trying to incite terrorist offences in the UK. And they attacked me twice, the first time they publicised in advance that they were going to come to disrupt my advice surgery, for those who aren’t in the UK, members of parliament here will often sit in an office, a church hall, a library, I did them in all those places, plus I did them in mosques and synagogues to make myself available.
They burst into the surgery and were very threatening and basically disrupted the surgery and had come according to their website. It was rather unsettled threat that they were going to come and stab me. Luckily I was taken to a place of safety. And then again at my next surgery at that particular mosque, they came back. But this time, unlike the first time, the police were present and so they were corralled outside to make sure that they couldn’t disrupt. So that was my first run in with a radicalised group who’d made it very plain that because of my… well, we think it’s two reasons why they targeted me, one was I was an openly gay man. And secondly, my very strong stance on extremism and my support for Israel and the Jewish community. Then that was kind of subsumed into sadly what many members of parliament have to cope with, what I call run of the mill harassment. And that can range from anything from just rude emails, graffiti on the office, I had a mock Molotov cocktail left on the doorstep of the office, which meant we had to evacuate, bomb threats, people phoning up saying that they’ve got a gun and they’re going to come to the office to kill me and my staff. And sadly, that is what we regard as run of the mill these days. And then that kind of, you just take it on the chin as part of being in public life. Now there’s a whole debate, which I’ll come to, about why people feel perhaps politicians or anyone in the public eye are fair game now. But then that was just day in, day out routine harassment. Then on the 17th of September ‘21, there’s a man called Ali Habibi Ali, who turned out to be a rather loner who’d been radicalised in his bedroom and had taken offence, not quite sure exactly what, but certainly my views on the Middle East and the subtext there, my support for Israel and the Jewish community was something he didn’t support. And he came to Finchley on that Friday, the 17th of September '21, and he told the police he’d come armed with the intention to attack me.
Now by pure fluke, instead of being in Finchley on that Friday to have my normal advice surgeries, I had changed my plans and I’d gone into Westminster and so I wasn’t there. Now although, because of all the numerous incidents, not at least the run-ins with Muslims against Crusades, we’d already stopped doing walk-ins. We’d never really allowed people to walk in off the street to see me, it always had to be by appointment. But in between appointments, I would always just run across the road to the local shop, buy a can of coke or a coffee, and that’s where he was hanging around. And I’m sure that had I been in Finchley that day and nipped across the road to get a drink, he would’ve attacked me and I probably would not have survived. And Ali Habibi Ali is the man that went on to kill Sir David Amos in a very frinzied attack where he was repeatedly stabbed. And David was a very kind man, but it turns out we had very similar views on the Middle East and so that appears to be the common threat. And after that, my life changed because it was quite obviously a serious threat and it was a proper credible threat to my life. And then because of what had almost gone on in the past, I then was put under the protection of a specialist team that look after senior politicians. So I got a government car, my house and my office were ripped apart. So I live in an old house and the security services said it wasn’t particularly safe. So all my windows had to be replaced because they were vulnerable to being punched in. So now they’re all security windows, panic buttons in every room, security lighting. And the same at my office.
And the bit that really started to grate and start to make myself and my husband Angelo wonder whether the job was worth it, and it can be the most wonderful job in the world being a Member Parliament, is it wasn’t just the physical security, you kind of get used to that, but it’s the constant grind of looking over your shoulder. So my husband didn’t particularly like me using the tube. I mean, one of the more routine parts of the job was being abused on the tube. You know, people would comment, people would shout at you, but he was always very worried about me being attacked as I walked home from the tube. And so I started driving to the House of Commons. But also you’re taught by the security services, situational awareness. You suddenly realise you drive home or you drive to appointment, you stop, you look around you, you check if there’s anyone around you. I’d also found notes on my car in the past and where people know where I live, but they didn’t necessarily know the car I drove. So you start wondering, has someone tampered with the car because one member of parliament did have his wheels tampered with and one of the wheels came off when he was on the motorway. So that kind of thing starts to really become quite tiring and exhausting. The other big part of what we were starting to tip the balance about remaining as a member parliament was I was quite adamant that I would remain accessible. So I often would do what we call supermarket searches where you stand in the doorway of a supermarket and people come and talk to you about problems. Sometimes they just ask you, where are the tomatoes, 'cause they rather bizarrely think you work at the supermarket. But because it was a public place and because it was advertised, I’d start wearing a stab vest, as did my staff. And certainly that weighed heavily that I go into public life and you bear the risks, but our staff don’t and neither do our families. So that weighed quite heavily. And things like twice a year I would run open events house, not house, advice fairs where local residents could come in and talk to a variety of organisations and you’d get four or 500 people coming through the door.
Again, because it was open to the public and it was publicised, I’d wear a stab vest, but I’d also then started to hire private discreet security who would be literally at my shoulder looking like a member of the public, but really a trained security operative just to keep me safe. So all of that started to become quite exhausting, wondering when’s the next attack going to happen? Whether it’s a small instance or whether it’s something more serious. And it is remarkably tiring to have that constant worry and not just the worry for yourself, but also the worry for our staff because they are the ones who have to answer the phone, they are the ones who open the door. And in fact, one man who previously threatened us saying he was armed and going to come to the office, and after the arson attack, which I’ll come onto, basically phoned up the office and started swearing at the staff saying, “I’m coming for you as well, not just Mike Freer.” So you know, we sometimes had to send the staff home because they were very disturbed. Was someone coming to the door? Was someone coming to get them as well? And so all of that started to weigh quite heavily as to whether it really was fair on my staff or my family, whether to constantly put myself in, if you like, the sites of various organisations and people quite often with mental health issues. Then the final straw for me was largely at Christmas Eve when there was an arson attack on my office, which was very badly damaged. The back of the building was effectively was scorched, windows melted, one office was completely destroyed, ceilings collapsed, computers, furniture, phones all melted or burnt. And we were out of action for about four months whilst we got everything back up and running. And it turns out actually there was no political motive. But when I discussed it with Angelo, my husband, I said, well… He was very, very upset about it obviously and he said, “Look, you are done. You are not standing again.” And I said, well look, it just turns out it was just a local scrote, sorry that’s an English colloquialism for being a bit of a local criminal. And he said, “Well that’s no comfort to me if there’s no motive, if you are dead, you are dead.”
And so that really was the final straw as to it was no longer something that I could carry on doing with a clear conscience. And despite my enormous love for the constituency, I decided that I had to step down. And so, you know, from that I have given quite some thought. So once I hounded out, in fact some people said I was a coward for giving into the intimidation. Well of course that’s very easy to say when you are not the one that’s putting their life on the line. And I could argue, well, okay, if I was a single man I could perhaps take that risk, but I have a family and a husband and I don’t want to make people worry that I’m not going to come home at the end of the day. Then I gave some thought as to why people feel emboldened to attack people in the public eye. And it’s not just politicians, it’s a variety of people who are in the public eye, and in my personal view, and there are three key factors. One is, particularly in London, I’ve had this discussion with senior police officers about the lack of visible policing on some of the demonstrations and the lack of visible consequences when you break the law. And so I used to raise it on a regular basis. We used to have often before the current mass demonstrations in support of Palestine and what’s going on in Gaza, we would have a variety of very similar demonstrations in support of variety of causes. And many of them were espousing terrorist groups and supportive terrorist groups. And I would often argue, why aren’t they being arrested? And I said, oh, well don’t worry Mr. Freer, we video them and we recall them, we arrest them at a later date.
And that was happening on these big mass demonstrations in Central London, which many of my constituents found quite intimidating and would want to avoid Central London and would want to avoid getting onto the tube, you know, the underground. And I pointed out that it’s pointless arresting people around the corner 'cause people don’t see it. How do people find out this person has been arrested? And I said I understand that, and I questioned and they said, “Well first of all we advertise that we’ve arrested so and so on Twitter.” And I said, well sorry a lot of my constituents are not on Twitter or X it’s now called, I’m not on it. So I came off it seven years ago when I was subjected to quite a lot of abuse, and I said, I’m done with that cesspit of X or Twitter as it was. And but the other problem is if, “Oh well we don’t want to cause a riot, we wade into a crowd, we could get a riot.” And I said, but you are the police if there’s a riot deal with it, they’ll only do it once if you get stuck in and they realise there are consequences to causing a riot. And bizarrely, isn’t it that they don’t want to cause a riot by arresting someone on a central on demonstration where there are people demonstrating against Israel but are quite happy to wade into a riot, the current riots. And so that’s why we’ve got this whole debate about whether that’s two-tier policing in the UK and that’s a fair debate to be had. And the issue is about, if you break the law, you need to be arrested on the spot, not just so you realise there are immediate and swift consequences to your actions, but so do those people around you. If you are on a demonstration, you see somebody doing something that is illegal and they get away with it or seem to be getting away with it, then you become emboldened to do the same. And so I do think that visible policing and visible consequences to breaking the law is an important part of a deterrent and ensure that the rule of law is maintained.
And then the other big issue, and I think this is particularly current in terms of the role of social media. And I’m going to just take a pause 'cause there’s two areas on this. Firstly, is the role of social media in handling complaints because they don’t. If you get a response from social media companies when you make a complaint, it’s either incredibly slow and it’s weeks after your complaint, in which case all the harmful comment content is still online. Or they come back, so for instance, I’m on Instagram, which is relatively soft and fluffy by social media standards, but I was getting sent pictures of dead babies. So I reported it to a Meta or you know, the company that owns Instagram and said this is harassment, this is horrendous imagery. And weeks later I got an email back or a message back saying, “Well it doesn’t breach our community guidelines so we’re not doing anything.” And then I said, what are your community guidelines like if people can post pictures of dead babies and send them to other people, why on earth is that acceptable to your community guidelines? And so what we’re seeing is social media simply looking for clickbait and doing nothing about harmful imagery but also misinformation. And there’s two elements to this, we’re seeing certainly in the UK at the moment, that some of the riots have been fed by misinformation on social media, where that information about who perpetrated the stabbings of the children, who did this, who did that, who’s in this hostel, who’s doing whatever, and it’s not accurate but it’s never corrected. Now some of that responsibility is the social media companies who are simply not addressing the issue.
Some of it is possibly malign actions by state actors, whether that’s Russia or China or Iran using social media companies to pursue their own agenda. But the broader issue is if you are under 35, you get your news largely now from social media, not from mainstream media. And two things certainly, I know it’s going to sound a bit like an old fart, is I was always taught, you read around the subject, you checked your facts, these days if it’s on TikTok it must be true and people are just accepting it as the truth rather than checking facts. Then what’s worse is if you start looking at clips on Twitter, clips on Instagram or whatever it is, the algorithms behind the social media then starts to feed that narrative. So before you realise it, if you are just kind of looking at a rather odd view out of interest, then all of a sudden you are being fed more and more information that reinforces that odd view and you end up going down this rabbit hole of misinformation, and you know, people are not getting themselves out of it because they’re not realising that what they’re being fed isn’t actually accurate and they’re not checking their facts. And that’s a big issue that needs to be addressed. And the part of the big problem, and this is where it’ll be interesting to get the views of any anyone that’s online from the states, is in my constituency several years ago we had a far right demonstration wanted to go down Golders Green road. Now for those of you don’t know with a patch, Golders Green is almost the heart of the UK’s Jewish community. And they were going to march down through the Jewish community, the area, demanding that it was almost cleansed and became, you know, we want our country back, which is their current slogan.
And some of the blogs were being pushed out by Brits who lived in the UK, the difficulty was their blogs were being hosted on American sites, and therefore it took absolutely months to get the blogs closed down because the American rules on freedom of speech are either well so strict or so lax depending on your point of view, that it was very hard to get social media companies to take that content down because in their views it was freedom of speech. And this is a big debate that we do need to have, how do we regulate social media companies whilst maintaining freedom of speech? What is the line between freedom of speech and intimidation, because freedom of speech is not the same as freedom to intimidate people. And so I wouldn’t quite say I was hounded out of office, but certainly a variety of factors started to weigh heavily. And in my view, many members of parliament are now in, if you like the cross sites of, some of it is just harassment online and you kind of, you just take that on the chin. But some of it is now starting to get worryingly dangerous and violent. And so unless we address the role of social media, unless we address how people are dealt with when they break the law, and unless we teach people to check their facts and not accept things at face value, then I do worry for the states of our democracy. And on that point, perhaps I’ll then stop and open up to questions and people might vehemently disagree with some of my analysis.
Q&A and Comments:
[Host] So Diane is saying, “Not a question, but as a constituent of Mike’s, I just want to say what an enormous contribution he made locally. As I was typing this, Trudy was saying the same thing, we miss you.” Sharon says, “Do you think…” Sorry?
That was very kind.
Q - [Host] Yeah. Sharon says, “Do you think there is two tier policing? What do you think the government should do about the riots? Do you think this government is up to doing what is necessary?”
A - I think it’s quite difficult because police have operational independence quite rightly. Politicians do not tell the police who to arrest, that’s the last thing we want. However, we do need the police to be… I’ve been blessed that in my local area in Barnet, the police have been incredibly good, certainly in supporting me. I have had some sharp exchanges with Mark Rowley, but I think to be fair to him is a decent bloke. But I think that there is a fair challenge as to the robust level of policing we’re seeing against the riots and the far right compared to some of the policing we’ve seen against environmentalists who of course, a lot of disruption and damage to public buildings. And equally what we’ve seen, while some of the rioting is quite physical and violent and there’s been a robust response, equally what I’ve seen in central London is in my view, there’s no differentiation between physical violence and verbal violence. If somebody is coming at you with a pipe or coming at you with a plank of wood, quite rightly I’d expect the police to deal with that incredibly swiftly and robustly. But equally, if I’ve got people on the streets shouting, death to Jews or death to gays or whatever it is, I’d expect that to be dealt with equally robustly. Because whilst one obviously is a much more imminent danger to the police officer or the public, that chanting of sedition if you like, that should not be in some ways treated more leniently.
And I think what’s also interesting is, I have no hard evidence of this, that’s something I’m going to have to try and look at, but I’ve certainly seen in London the number of arrests on the big demonstrations for the main anti-Israel demonstrations, I think as a percentage is far lower than the percentage of demonstrators for pro-Israel have been arrested. And so I think that is a fair challenge to the police. They will clearly say they don’t do two tier policing. And I think that policing in the UK is based on consent from the public. And I think that it is a fair challenge to say to the police, if the public believe that you are not being even handed, then it is up to you to show us that you are being even handed because as soon as the public starts to believe the police are playing favourites, that’s a very slippery slope for the way we support our police. And I genuinely believe our police do an amazing job, a job I couldn’t do. But I do think that they need to explain how they police and show people how they police much more thoroughly to rebuild trust from all of our communities.
Q - [Host] Thank you. Pamela says, “As a constituent of yours, we were very grateful for your support in many ways. While we were sorry to lose you as our MP, we absolutely understood your reasons for stepping down.” So this one doesn’t have a name but they say, “As a part-time London resident, I feel honoured to have had you as our MP. Your resignation was totally understandable. May I ask you,” and she has three questions, “Should hate speech in mosques be monitored by undercover M15 with regard to your dreadful treatment by these threatening thugs? Was there any response supportive or otherwise from the local Imam? And finally, what was the response from Rishi Sunak?”
A - Two things, I think that that’s a very interesting question in terms of I do believe there is monitoring of hate speech by the police and the undercover work. How that is dealt with, certainly the Daily Mail did quite a lot of an expose of some of these sermons. Now I’m not aware of the actions that were taken by the police or security services following that. And that’s a challenge that there’s always, because the news cycle is so short and attention spans are so short the media is very good at reporting the incident but very slow to report the actual follow up or certainly not to the same degree. So I do think that there is monitoring going on. Because we’re not in a police state, I know some Arab states actually require all Imams to submit their sermons in advance, but we’re not a police state and I’m not suggesting that we should go down that route. I think they’re rather than deal, you know, have lots of undercover work on monitoring mosques or Imams, I think the big debate to be had is how do we ensure that communities abide by British values. And I feel quite passionate about the UK is a very open and tolerant country. It’s a country that has benefited enormously for a thousand years from immigration of all sorts. But every new arrival has integrated and that’s not the same as assimilation. You know, we respect people’s cultures and the ability to practise their faith, but equally all new arrivals except that they’re part of the British family and respect the British family.
And so I look at two examples, I mean I look at the Jewish community here in my patch, the ability to practise Judaism is absolutely sacrosanct and it is respected and people get on with their lives. But neither do the community seek to impose that religion on the rest of the society. The same very much with the Hindu faith. You know, we had a large influx of people after Uganda when Idi Amin in threw people out, and the Hindu community, the Ugandan Asian community very quickly settled and integrated into British society and became incredibly successful cultural respect but not seeking to change the nature of the host country if I can put it rather in elegantly. And I think my experience in the mosques of my patch of which there are several is the vast majority of my Muslim constituents simply wanted to get on with their lives. They wanted to send their kids to school, they wanted somewhere to live, they wanted a job, they wanted just to keep their heads down like all of us do and get on with their lives peacefully. What we have is perhaps we have a small cohort who are seeking to create division and that is where we need to ensure that all communities understand that we respect our differences but we won’t allow anybody to try and intimidate others into their point of view.
And that’s the challenge. You know, when we’ve got elements of people outside school gates trying to get teachers sacked or where a teachers had to go into hiding because of what they taught, that is not acceptable and that is a very small vocal minority that needs to be dealt with who are doing a disservice to the wider community. And I think we need to ensure that everyone signs up to British values but those who step out of line are dealt with very swiftly. And so I’m not sure if that answered the question, but I do believe that, we should not allow a small core to taint a whole community, but we have a lot of work to do to ensure that that small and vocal minority are isolated and dealt with.
[Host] Thank you.
Can I just ask you 'cause I’ve just seen a question from Shelly Shapiro, it talks about the diversity where various ethnic groups interact or was it kind of diversity where all groups stay in their own corners. Interaction? So yes, you know in terms of, within Finchley and Golders Green, we don’t have a Hindu area, we don’t have a Muslim area. I mean obviously there are bits of the constituency which have a high percentage of Jewish constituents because of proximity to synagogues. And certainly if you go down to Golders Green because of the kosher shops and the need to be within walking distance of synagogues, then clearly you will have a concentration but it’s not exclusive to any particular community. But what’s important is that those communities come together and mix.
And so that’s what was rather bizarre. And I’ll give you one example, many years ago, probably about eight or nine years ago, now there was a very small group called the Somali Bravenese who used to meet, a most wonderful community, met in a small hut in the constituent and it was burnt down as an arson attack. We don’t think it was any motive behind it, apart from just people wanting to set far to a building. What was amazing is that some of the first people down on site to help the community rebuild were the local Jewish community. And in fact, whilst it took several years to get the community back on their feet and into a new home, they were embraced and the synagogues opened their doors to provide space for the community to meet, for them to have their own Eid celebrations.
But equally if you go to, we don’t have the Hindu temple, but many of the festivals would be open to all. The mosque in North Finchley would certainly throw open its doors several times a year and have ecumenical services where other faith leaders were invited in to celebrate a particular festival. And so the community in Finchley and Golders Green rubs along, in some ways keeps themselves if that’s what they want. But most importantly the leadership of the communities come together and interact and the communities interact as well. So it is not, everyone’s in their own little pockets. It is diverse in terms of mixing and I think that’s why if like Barnet works so well.
And if I may, one of the things when I used to be leader of Barnet council, so as the head counsellor, one of the things I was quite struck by is our community adhesion was incredibly strong. And I sometimes thought it was because we actually didn’t go down the route that many councils did in the '70s and '80s of having like race relations officers. We basically didn’t have any of that. We just simply welcomed a new community, shrugged our selves and said, yep, okay, come on, you are welcome, get on with it. And we just accepted everybody as they were rather than having a whole machinery of trying to intervene. And in some ways that can kind of cause it, in my personal view can sometimes cause division. And so that’s why I think Barnet has been a great success. Not saying it doesn’t have its problems, but it’s been a great success of having many, many groups coming together and living a very peacefully alongside each other.
Thank you.
We’re all quite… We’re all quite same. I have to say, you’re giving me quite an easy ride.
Q - [Host] Paul says, “Hi Mike. I was chairman of Harrow East constituency and know what a good MP you were. I was horrified at what happened with the attacks on you and the fire in your office. When you stood down why didn’t you wait until the election rather than resign beforehand?”
A - I did, I did. I announced I was stepping down at the next election in February because that would allow, I told my local party in January that I was stepping down so that they could start the process of selecting a new candidate. But I didn’t leave parliament until the general election was called.
Q - [Host] Ronald says, “How prevalent is your experience amongst other MPs, and does your successor have similar policies as yours? What party does he or she represent?”
A - Every MP encounters abuse, women MPs especially. Women MPs also get threatened with sexual violence, which men tend not to, but every MP will get a level of abuse, whether it’s emails or graffiti or demonstrations. A few will get more serious abuse. And so one of my colleagues in North London actually is a labour MP was followed round, was out taking her daughter, pushed her through the local park and was abused and followed around. Quite often MPs are now, people are following them, shouting their views at them and filming it at the same time. And so every MP has that level of abuse. It’s variable depending I think on the seats I think metropolitan seats will tend to be slightly worse, but I think that’s every MP will get it. In terms of my successor, my successor is a labour MP and well I mean it’d be interesting to see how other, if any constituents are on the line take a view. But you know, many of the reassurances to the Jewish community on the Labour Party stance on Israel and on Gaza have very quickly been watered down within weeks. The views of the incoming government shifted quite dramatically. So things like arms embargoes, dropping our objection to the international criminal courts prosecution of Netanyahu, all of which were reassured that, you know, they were in lockstep with the outgoing government. And then within weeks that support for Israel has been quite notably weakened and watered down.
- [Host] There’s some additional comments on policing, so I’m going to read one comment and then follow with a question from another listener. Judith says, “30 years ago the Israeli embassy in London was bombed as were Jewish community offices in North Finchley. Since that time the Met police did not ensure the security of the Jewish community and the CST was formed. At the old Bailey, the terrorists involved were sentenced to 20 years imprisonment but were released to open prison followed by early release, even though they still held their militant Islamic and anti-Israel Jewish views. As a witness at the old Bailey, I lost my job and complaints to the police that they had caused my dismissal after 17 years by disclosing confidential information were ignored. The attitude still persists, it was then and it is now two tier policing.”
Q: And I’ll just follow with a question from Sally saying, “We have had 10 months after week of openly racist, violence, threatening, criminal damage, committing mobs in central London and elsewhere, all met with soft hand in terms of policing. The outbreaks of violent protest, thuggery in the past days, have these been encouraged by the sight of people quote, getting away with quote, unacceptable behaviour on these so-called pro-Palestinian marches?”
A - Okay, a couple of quick things in terms of once someone is arrested, the charge that is taken forward isn’t a matter for the police, that’s a matter for the director of public prosecutions. And then once someone is sent to prison, I would be very surprised if someone here was convicted of terrorist offences had gone to an open prison. But I don’t know the details of the case, but it doesn’t sound normal. And certainly early release again would be highly unusual for someone convicted of a terrorism offence. In fact, most terrorists, those convicted of terrorism go to a high security prison which is usually Woolwich where most of our terrorists are incarcerated. But without knowing the details, I can’t really comment. That’s broadly how it works. Now in terms of the policing, when I met Mark Rowley when I was still a member of parliament, I challenged him on why my constituents felt that the demonstrations in London were not being policed effectively. And to be fair, we had a somewhat sharp exchange of views. And I think it’s true to say that the police got it wrong at the outset. They were too softly softly. That’s absolutely true, and I think that they have accepted that. They have changed the way they’ve operated. In terms of have they gone far enough? Probably not in my view, but I did take the opportunity to visit the control room in central London on a Saturday when they were policing one of the marches. And to be fair to the police, and I always believe, you know, I speak as I find and I’m quick to criticise where I believe it’s valid, but equally quick to defend the police where I think that they’ve got it right. In the control room, they monitor obviously the march and what you see on television is not necessarily what’s happening on the ground. It’s quite interesting how the camera shot can change the perception of the crowd itself.
But what was fascinating is we saw this man climb traffic lights and damaged them. He has been prosecuted for that. But he was also using a megaphone to chant antisemitic chants. He was also then tracked because they have a team that monitor social media, and using the technology, they then also found him on X, marching equally using the microphone to chant antisemitic chants. They then circulated using ANPR, they circulated the photo to all the police on the ground, but using facial recognition technology, not ANPR, sorry, facial recognition technology, they were able to identify where he was in the crowd. So from marching, from climbing up the lamppost to being arrested took 15 minutes, and he was arrested in the full view of all the people around him. So to be fair to the police, they are using the technology and they are changing the way they operate. Now the dangers of course is once the gene is out of the bottle, when people feel that they are going to get away with it, then they will feel they can get away with it. And I suspect that is an element of what’s happening on the riots. People will realise that the chances of getting arrested and getting away, chances of getting arrested are probably slim and the chances of actually getting caught are slimmer still.
And so they equally are, people will be emboldened by what they’re being fed by social media because some of it isn’t just about, I’m going to get away with it, but they feel they are fighting a righteous cause because of what they’re being fed on Telegram or other social media platforms. And that’s slightly more worrying. There’ll always be yobs who will be indoctrinated. My worry is, that access to this indoctrination is now much easier and much harder to control. I mean I referenced at the very outset one of my stances against radical preachers trying to come to the UK. Well if you ban a radical preacher now they don’t have to come to the UK. They can broadcast into our classrooms, into our universities from their home. So the ability to stop them coming into the UK is now irrelevant because we can just beam them into people’s sitting rooms. People can be indoctrinated at the flick of a switch. And that’s a really worrying trend and something that we’ve got to get to rips with because otherwise it’s really going to corrode our trust in society and our trust in the various institutions that we rely on.
Q - [Host] Two follow up questions on this, Barbara asks, “If you are no longer an MP, who is there to take forward your excellent suggestions that media companies must be challenged on the content they’re allowed to be published on their sites?” And then Neil says, “How can the media companies be held to account? Whatever laws are passed the media companies have far greater resources to challenge the law. The public sector can never satisfactorily regulate and control the private.”
A - And those are all very fair challenges. So who’s taking it forward? Well, I’m using whatever influence and platforms I have. So although I’ve stepped down as a member of parliament, I’ve not gone away. I’m just finding different ways of having my voice heard. But I think there is a genuine common cause on social media. So it isn’t just about this particular issue of hate preachers, or the level of indoctrination or misinformation isn’t just about what’s happening in the Middle East or what’s happening about Islam. There are a number of my colleagues who’re equally exercised about what’s happening on access of children online to inappropriate imagery, because largely speaking, it’s quite easy for children to go online and access pornography. And my natural instinct is I’m a bit of a kind of a social liberal. So I believe in obviously inequalities, but equally that rule of, you know, liberalism has to be within if you like tramlines of the guardrails that keep us safe. But many parents are worried about what their children are finding online. And then alongside that, we’ve had numerous instances in the UK, particularly young girls who commit suicide because it might be a variety of reasons, but they’re having suicidal thoughts or they’re having eating disorders and the social media algorithms then simply feed that view and we’ve got instances where someone was feeling suicidal and basically algorithms basically taught to how to do it.
And so it’s not just this particular topic that I’m exercised about, but there is a common view now across a variety of strands where people are coming to say, the social media companies need to be brought to heel. How do we do it? And that’s the challenge because I understand Germany and I don’t know the details yet, it’s something I’m going to look into have brought in specific territorial rules that apply to Germany and how social media companies, if they want to operate in Germany, operate. Now that I think that’s something I’m going to have to look at, 'cause I’m not quite sure how you control a media company that can get without closing down the internet in your own country, which is something as liberal democracies we don’t do. You know frankly if the UK government said, Michael, I don’t want you to go onto Instagram, I’m not sure how they’d stop me. Because the ability to get round controls is fairly easy. And I think the issue is how do we control, the debate has to go back to America and apologise if there are Americans online, I’d very much like to get their views, is is there a debate to be had as to what free speech means? Because we have maligned forces who are hiding behind the free speech tenet to spread hatred and poison. And so how far do we have to go before we say that’s not free speech anymore. And so I’d be interested to get any views on Americans if they’re on the line, 'cause all roots lead back to social media companies and all social media companies tend to be in the states 'cause that’s where they tend to have a more free hand to get away with it.
[Host] I don’t yet see anyone in the comment section from America speaking to that. But we will-
I’m sure Elon Musk is not going to take advice from me.
Q - [Host] But I do have two connected comments here so we’ll move on. Myrna says, “How much do you think this is inspired by Trump’s instructions to fight and take back your country? Also, if you look at Musk’s family history, it’s quite disturbing. He’s definitely part of the problem.” Karen says, “Do certain politicians need to be more careful with the language they use, which may stoke fear and violence against minority communities and refugees?”
A - I think it’s an interesting debate we have in the UK. I certainly think that certainly national leaders need to be quite careful. The danger is, I think in sometimes, there are leaders and it’s not just in the states, but there are leaders across the world who use language that appeals to their base and inflames their base. To be honest, that’s not particularly prevalent in the UK luckily. But I do think we do have a problem in some of our big bigger countries where they will use social media and use language that is what we would call in the UK a dog whistle. And that I think is a real challenge as to how, so if you look at the, I mean I’m a great fan of the states and I follow American politics avidly, sometimes with hope and sometimes with desperation. But it’s interesting about how do we get, and this goes back to not just the language politicians use, that is a fair challenge, but the biggest issue is why people simply accept what social media tells them as truth.
And if I… I’ve got a, really I’m sounding like my father now, but it used to be particularly when you had, you know, the print news, you would get the news or in fact the facts in one story and you get the opinion in a different story, and it was clearly labelled opinion. Now often the stories are blended and you really have to have your wits about you to, you know, if you’re reading online, you’re reading blog posts and so on, or you’re reading newspapers online to understand to pick through what is a fact and what is the opinion of the journalist. So the challenge is not necessarily just to the social media companies, not just to the politicians to be careful of the language they use, but how do we teach the population? And this may be something that we need to go back to the schools on, is how do we teach critical thinking that people question what they’re told. It’s not suggesting that you think everything you are told is a lie, but at least say, Hmm, that’s interesting, let me just check out a counter view. As a conservative, you know, centre right politician, I would still read centre left newspapers partly to get what are the views of my opponents? But also it helped me understand what opposing views were. And sometimes the core issue was we have common cause, and sometimes their interpretation of it was different. And I found that was a crucial part of being a good politician. And I think that’s what we start to need to teach the population to do. Just to be a bit more sceptical of what they’re told and a bit more sceptical about what they read.
[Host] Gerald says, “You have been a great MP, thank you for that. How do you expect social media to take notice of policing comment when someone like Elon Musk can spew garbage like his comment on civil war here, maybe he should look over his shoulder at Mr. Trump’s rabid followers, I despair.”
But he’s not just Elon Musk and this is partly, you know, there was a, one of the more right wing Israeli politicians who was lauding Auburn in Hungary and saying that, “The Jewish population of London had to go round in armoured people carriers.” It was complete nonsense. And so we need to find a mechanism, it’s not just Elon Musk and Donald Trump and so on, but it’s across the world where we have politicians who are coming out with complete extreme false hards. We need to find a way of calling them out. Now often, the problem with Elon Musk is incredibly powerful because of his wealth and his platforms. In the old days we just used to laugh at these people and that we used to find that tended to bring them, you know, cut them down to size. But I think we’ve got a problem that has outgrown the way we used to deal with these kind of fruitcakes and we need to find a way of bringing them to heel. Now I don’t know how we do that, these are probably going to take greater brains than mine. But having worked in a bank we used to say, if you grab them by the budgets, then minds will follow. And so I’m not sure just imposing rules and regulations on social media will work. It might be that we have to start hitting these companies in their pocket. That’s when the shareholders or that’s when the owners of the company start to sit up and take notice. I don’t think they give one jot to politicians ranting about how bad they are, but once you start hitting them on the bottom line, that’s when they sit up and take notice.
[Host] Brenda says, “I live in Canada and I get the impression from social media that Muslim groups that are anti-Israel and anti-UK are more than just a fringe. We see massive demonstrations that are very vocal and angry. Police that are present often do not appear effective.”
I think that’s a, I mean that’s a fair challenge. I’m not sure the way these demonstrations have been portrayed in the media is entirely accurate. But actually if you look at some of the big demonstrations, I think it would be unfair to say it is entirely Muslim groups, that’s not a fair representation. Many of the big demonstrations, they have dwindled quite considerably from a hundred thousand down the last one I saw was 9,000, still a significant number but significantly less. What you’ll find is often it’s a coalition of various, usually left wing groups, particularly when it comes to Israel. And that’s a whole debate about how does Israel, if you like, change the narrative about Israel. 'Cause one of my, in fact my perspective is many of these groups, and as a gay man, I thought it was rather bizarre that we had queers for Palestine. I said, in what world would a gay man want to stand up for Hamas? In fact, I offered to pay the airfare of gay activists to go to Gaza and start Gaza Pride and see how long they’d last. But the more serious issue is you find a coalition of the left because they regard Israel as a white colonialist country. Now those of you, you know, those of us who know Israel know that is not true. However, it is portrayed in the media as a white colonialist country. And so the challenge to Israel, despite obviously constantly at war and a bunker mentality, which I understand, is there needs to be a major programme partly on social media because frankly Hamas and others are running rings around Israel on social media, which is bizarre for a country that is so tech savvy. But there has to be a role of how does Israel explain what Israel really is like, this multi-ethnic, multi-diverse where you can be Catholic, you can be Muslim, you can be you know, Bedouin, you can be gay, you can be lesbian, etc, etc.
And so that’s a real challenge. But also, how much does Israel give to the world? And so what I find rather bizarre is the current labour government seeking to restrict arm sales to Israel won’t make a jot of difference to Israel. But if Israel sought to retaliate, the British Army’s drones would have to be taken out of action, 'cause most of its drone technology is Israeli. 17% of the drugs used by the NHS, those drugs are Israeli. If you look at much of the software that we use on our phones and social media, it’s Israeli. And so I think we need to be careful that we don’t bite the hand that feeds us. And so this is a role for Israel and I realise that they’re focused on the war, I get that. But at some point there has to be debate is how do Israel show the world what it is really like and what it gives back to the world, and that’s a bigger challenge. And I say that from a position of enormous love for Israel, but equally I get frustrated that much of what Israel is, is good about Israel is simply lost in the noise of the current conflict.
[Host] I think we can take up one more couplet of questions. Before I do that, just want to say that there’s just so many comments expressing gratitude to you for your service. I can’t read them all, but so many people just really expressing appreciation and respect.
Have we got time for one more question?
Of course. I have time for as many as you like.
One more. I think we have to invite you back, Mike, if that’s okay with you?
Of course. Very much so, it’s been a real pleasure. Maybe I should just do a question and answer rather than a bit of a speech.
Yes, I think some of the questions and issues that you’ve brought up are so, so pertinent. There’s all of fear as you know in the Jewish community. And the issue of how Israel puts its case or even how the Jews in the diaspora put the case for Israel, I think that’s also important.
Well, interestingly, Trudy, I’ve been speaking to the board of deputies and other of the movers and shakers 'cause I’m quite passionate about a project which I’ve called Shabbat on Tour. So not being Jewish, but I was first invited. I mean, you know, I kind of joke that when I first got elected all those years ago, the community embraced me and I embraced the community, and I want people to see the community that I’ve got to know and love, flaws and all. You know, no community is perfect, but it is the most wonderful community in terms of the resilience, the education, the charitable works, everything that makes the community tick most people don’t know about. And I don’t believe that the British public is antisemitic, they simply have no knowledge of a Jewish family.
Because I also used to joke that 6% of the UK is Jewish population within 10 minutes drive from my house. So how do we get what I call Shabbat on tour, how do we do, when I first went to Friday night, and I’ve been to some with the chief rabbi, you know, very orthodox and I’ve been to some which are much more informal and all points in between, they’re most amazing experience plus, plus, plus everything else of experience from the community. How do we do that in parts of the country that don’t have a kosher kitchen? And so there are challenges that I, we can’t bring everyone from Lincoln to Golders Green on a Friday night. So how do we take Mohammed to the mountain, if you like, or is that around, the mountain to Mohammed.
No, it’s good.
And it’s not just, I think this is something for our group to think about and something else. It’s, nobody knows who the Jews really are. Nobody knows about Jewish education, even in terms of Holocaust, in the study of the Holocaust, as I was saying to you offline, it is so, there are so many films, so many books, it’s not making a jock difference to antisemitism. And I think there’s huge issues that we as a community need to seriously address. And I just hope that you will be part of these discussions that are so important. And so, Mike-
You’re right, you’re right, Trudy. If I may, it’s not just on the Jewish issues, antisemitism. I mean, you know, I came from this as, usually people say to me, you know, why have you been so supportive? It’s because of the electoral? And obviously that’s an element if you represent a large Jewish community. But I always point out as a gay man, I’d been on the transports as well, not with the Yellow Star, but with the pink triangle. And that’s what worries me is about, and I touched on this, about British values. So how do we get our wider communities to accept that people as they are, whether they are Jewish or Muslim, gay or straight, women’s rights, whatever the issue is, you can disagree till your heart’s content, but you do not have the right to intimidate people into silence or changing their stance. And that’s the challenge.
And it’s one hell of a challenge. And I think unfortunately we’ve got to do something about our education system because I think that’s where the failure comes. And I want to say to you, Mike, that I’d also believe that the majority of Brits are really decent people, and who do not share these extremist views in any way. But the extremists, unfortunately many of them are in education at the universities and in the schools as well and this is the issue we really have to . You’ve touched on so many, many important issues. I’ve thrown out the challenge. We can talk offline, but I’d love to invite you back for a question and answer session. So I’m going to go along with Wendy, my friend, my colleague who’s done such wonderful work herself, and to say, thanks a million for coming, and also to my colleagues and who are making all this happen. So God bless and take care you.