Defiant Tories take on mob rule at universities with more visits
CONSERVATIVES will send more MPS to speak at universities in a drive to protect free speech after Jacob Reesmogg was targeted by protesters in a scuffle at a student event.
Brandon Lewis, the party chairman, wrote to the rank and file to say the Tories were “stepping up our speaker programme” after Mr Rees-mogg’s address to UWE Bristol politics and international relations society turned ugly.
Mr Lewis accused “Momentum-supporting thugs” of trying to “silence Conservatives”, in reference to the campaign group which supports Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, and urged members to sign a petition in support of free speech.
Video footage of Mr Rees-mogg’s speech on Friday showed the MP trying to intervene as protesters and onlookers clashed. The protesters, many wearing masks to conceal their identity, claimed the politician should not be heard in a public forum.
The Eurosceptic MP for North East Somerset downplayed the incident, saying he had endured “worse confrontations with the Guardian”.
But Mr Lewis told party members: “Momentum-supporting thugs broke into a university event and tried to silence Conservatives. Wearing balaclavas, they tried through violence and intimidation to stop the ideas that they disagreed with from being heard.”
He added: “Young people have a right to hear all sides of the political debate. So we’ll protect free speech by stepping up our speaker programme – making sure Conservative voices are heard in universities across the country.” Mr Rees-mogg said he did not feel threatened at the event, insisting there was a “legitimate place for lawful protest”.
He added: “If they hadn’t been wearing face coverings, there would have been nothing wrong with it.”
Theresa May, the Prime Minister, will this week announce a possible new crime of intimidating a parliamentary candidate as she looks to stop harassment and abuse in British politics.
Mr Lewis’s intervention came as Claire Kober, the outgoing Labour leader of Haringey council who quit over “sexism” and “bullying” by hard Left supporters of Mr Corbyn, detailed the “intimidation” she had suffered.
She told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show: “In the last two years, I’ve experienced more threats, more bullying, more intimidation than in the previous eight years put together.” She said some abuse she faced was “absolutely sexist”.
“And that runs from the way that I was treated by the national executive of my party just last week,” she added, “through to examples of council meetings where Labour Party members at the end of a meeting have shouted at me and sung a Police song, Every Breath You Take, as a means of intimidating me. That is a song about stalking. A man would not have been treated in that way.”
Ms Kober blamed her treatment on a “particular political toxic culture”.
She said: “I don’t blame individuals because these acts, if you look at them in isolation perhaps don’t look too significant. When you put them together you see a whole culture.”
Meanwhile, Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, yesterday endorsed Mr Corbyn as the next prime minister, describing him as “outstanding”.
The efforts to shout down Jacob Rees-mogg at a university engagement in Bristol on Friday evening were the latest example of a politician facing intimidation and bullying. The Conservative MP showed admirable courage in stepping in between two groups threatening to turn the event into a brawl, since he is not, by his own admission, a natural pugilist. But nor should he need to be. The targeting of politicians, and especially of women MPS and candidates, by opponents of whatever political stripe is reaching epidemic proportions.
To some extent it goes with the territory, as Mr Rees-mogg acknowledged. He did not object to the protest but to the fact that the demonstrators were masked and potentially violent. Politicians down the centuries have had to endure brickbats and criticism; political discourse can easily become heated. It is when it strays into something worse that the line needs to be drawn. But where?
Theresa May is proposing a new offence in electoral law of intimidating parliamentary candidates and their campaigners. If this applies only for the duration of an election it is worth considering, though existing laws against threatening behaviour, assault and harassment already apply equally to election campaigners as to others. The danger is extending such a law to cover politicians in the normal course of their duties. It could easily be used to close down legitimate debate, heckling, booking or any other timehonoured response to views people do not share.
The best way of dealing with the sort of people who tried to stop Mr Rees-mogg speaking is to stand up to them, since they are a small minority who will find no wider support. Mrs May is right to ask for “decency, tolerance and respect” in politics, but must be careful not to legislate away the necessary cut and thrust at the same time.