British MPs call a truce … for now

Just 48 hours after mourning British MPs issued pleas for civility, PM Boris Johnson appeared impatient to go on the attack in parliament.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the Commons on Wednesday. Picture: AFP / Jessica Taylor / UK Parliament

Just 48 hours after mourning British MPs issued pleas for civility, Prime Minister Boris Johnson ­appeared impatient to go on the attack in parliament.

As Mr Johnson spoke on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), outside protesters erected a mock gallows, accusing MPs of “treason” in ­imposing lockdowns.

The day before, an anti-vaccination mob had swarmed around cabinet minister Michael Gove on a street near parliament. Police scrambled to protect him.

The killing last week of Conservative MP David Amess has prompted soul-searching among his colleagues from all sides as to why there is so much anger in the political air. Covid-19 has poured fuel on the fire that has simmered since Britain’s Brexit 2016 referendum encouraged warring tribes, among politicians and the public, to pursue no-holds-barred tactics.

A 25-year-old man arrested on suspicion of stabbing Mr Amess to death is reportedly a Briton of ­Somali heritage, and police have labelled it a terrorist incident.

But there appears to be a ­realisation among many MPs, including former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, that political discourse has become toxic. “This is a lesson to us that we need to be careful here what we legitimise in what we say about our colleagues. They are not evil ­people,” he told the Commons. “Nobody in this chamber is an evil individual.”

His comments echoed a statement by Mr Amess’s family urging people to “set aside hatred and work towards togetherness”.

The killing followed the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by a far-right extremist just before the 2016 referendum. Since then, women in particular in public life have reported an unceasing stream of threats.

On Monday, as MPs paid tribute to Mr Amess, several pointed to social media as the turbo-charging catalyst for the hatred, and urged the government to use forthcoming laws on “online harms” to clamp down harder.

At the weekly session of Prime Minister’s questions in the Commons, Labour Leader Keir ­Starmer told Mr Johnson he would maintain a “collegiate ­spirit” in light of Mr Amess’s death. But when he pressed the government to ensure the online legislation included “criminal sanctions” against directors of ­social media companies, Mr Johnson sought to turn the tables on Labour. “What we hope for also is that no matter how tough the proposals we produce, that the opposition will support it,” he said, provoking sighs of exasperation from the Labour benches at his partisan tone.

If online radicalisation and rampant misogyny are again under scrutiny, so too are politicians’ own words and actions, not least Mr Johnson’s. The Prime Minister has a long trail of offensive statements on the books against women, gay men, black people and Muslims.

In his speech to the Conservatives’ annual conference this month, Mr Johnson renewed a ­polarising offensive against ­Labour revolving around “culture wars”. Labour deputy leader ­Angela Rayner refused to apologise ­recently for calling Conservative party members “scum” until Mr Johnson did the same for his past comments.

Remi Adekoya, a politics lecturer and expert in political discourse at York University, said the ultimate responsibility to detoxify UK politics was with those at the top. “If we’ve learned anything about Boris Johnson, he gauges what’s going to benefit him politically and keep him as alpha leader of his tribe, and that means using provocative language,” he said.

Labour MP Rupa Huq hopes for a new mood to prevail, urging colleagues to follow Mr Amess’s example in “being less cross and more cross-party”.

But Mr Adekoya was sceptical. “I don’t doubt the good intentions of those calling for a rethink. But the dynamics are so skewed in favour of polarisation, these kinds of truce won’t last,” he said.

AFP