A lifelong activist and politician, Hain has over 50 years’ experience of battling corruption, from his early days as a freedom fighter against apartheid to his time as a UK Labour MP, cabinet minister, and sitting member of the House of Lords. He offers a gripping exploration of why movements born from the ideals of justice and freedom often succumb to bad governance and corruption once in power. Combining rigorous analysis with well-sourced evidence, this book examines global examples ranging from Africa to Latin America, Russia, the Caribbean, China and India.

With the unique perspective of having navigated both the streets of protest and the corridors of power, Hain reflects on the challenges of st

aying true to the values of liberation struggles while confronting their disappointing outcomes. Thought-provoking and accessible, this book is an essential read for anyone engaged in the fight for a better world.

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Will dwindling elephant numbers be reversed? Will the forces of good triumph over the vicious looters? Can the annual trillion-dollar money laundering trade by brought to heel by a brave whistle blower? Peter Hain's gripping second thriller builds to a dramatic climax, the action switching from wildlife to politics, from bushveld to city, from high finance to poaching. A vivid and gripping journey into the competing worlds of activism and corruption.

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A highly readable, dramatic story of a colourful South African journey lasting over 50 years in politics, from anti-apartheid protester to Right Honourable Lord, from Pretoria childhood to senior British Cabinet Minister.

A Pretoria Boy begins with how Peter Hain’s journey came full circle when he used parliamentary privilege in 2017-18 to expose looting and money laundering, supplied with the ammunition by his ‘deep throat’ inside the Zuma State, and putting South Africa’s state capture and corruption on the front pages of the New York Times and Financial Times, some suggest playing a part in Zuma’s toppling.

Going back to an anti-apartheid childhood in Pretoria in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there are vivid descriptions of his parents’ arrest, banning, harassment, helping an escaped political prisoner, the hanging of a close white family friend, and enforced exile to London in 1966 after the government prohibited his architect father from working.  

How he organised and led aged 19 militant anti-Springbok demonstrations in exile in London in 1969-1970, denounced by South African media as ‘Public Enemy Number One’.  

How he narrowly escaped jail after a South African government financed prosecution landed him up in the Old Bailey in 1972 for conspiracy to disrupt those all-white South African sports tours.  Then in 1975 how he was framed for a bank theft committed by an apartheid security agent.  

His return to South Africa came first on a secret mission in December 1989, then as a parliamentary observer during the 1994 elections.

The book ends with his perspective on the country’s future.

Peter Hain’s new thriller The Rhino Conspiracy is being published on the 10th of September. 

The Rhino Conspiracy has been described by the publisher Muswell Press as ‘An epic tale of corruption, collusion and courage set in contemporary South Africa’.  It has received some great early reviews; including Alan Johnson ‘Gripping, tense and timely’ and Julian Rademeyer ‘Masterful…A thrilling journey behind the frontlines of the battle to save Africa’s wildlife’

To buy exclusive signed and dedicated copies from Daunts Bookshop  Click here.  To support the UK’s brilliant independent bookshops  Click here.  To buy from any Waterstones branch Click here or from Amazon Click here (they are also the retailer of the ebook and the Audio edition).

Reviews would be welcome on amazon.co.uk and waterstones.com as well as comments on social media using the hashtags @PeterHain @MuswellPress and @savetherhino

To find out more about The Rhino Conspiracy, read the full review on LoveReading where it is a lead title for September here

In 2007, when I was Secretary of State for Wales, to mark 200 years the abolition of the slave trade, I published this government pamphlet on Wales and Slavery  

Wales and Slavery-2007Download

In 2007, when I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, to mark 200 years the abolition of the slave trade, I published this government pamphlet on Northern Ireland and Slavery  

Northern Ireland Slavery pamphlet 2007Download

Lord Hain (Lab)

My Lords, at the request of my noble friend Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, who has to attend a funeral tomorrow, I wish to move Amendment 13 and speak to Amendments 14, 16, 17 and 20 appearing also in the names of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, and the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and with the blessing, I know, of the DUP, Sinn Féin and the Alliance Party.

We all welcome the restoration of devolved Stormont government and wish the Assembly and Executive well in taking Northern Ireland forward to what we all hope will be a better and more stable future. I have always maintained that, where there is deadlock in the political process, as we have seen over the last three years so tragically, it can be resolved only when the British and Irish Governments work together in a focused and positive way. There are former Secretaries of State in this House who I think will not disagree with that. I particularly commend the way in which the current Secretary of State, Julian Smith, approached the outstanding issues, working closely with the Irish Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, ably supported by the noble Lord, Lord Duncan, and the Minister in the Commons. The Secretary of State has brought energy and commitment to the negotiations that, sadly, his predecessors lacked, and he was doing so even before the political arithmetic changed with the election last month.

It is in the context of the restoration of the institutions in Northern Ireland and, more crucially, their prospects for long-term stability that I urge the Government to accept these amendments. After all, they achieve what the Government themselves profess to support: namely, no impediments to trade across the Irish Sea. The purpose of these amendments is to protect the Northern Ireland economy from the clear and inevitable damage that leaving the European Union in the hard Brexit way seemingly envisaged by the Government will otherwise cause. They are not delaying or wrecking amendments—nor are they the last frantic efforts of deluded remainers or remoaners to thwart the democratic process. They are essential damage-limitation measures, supported by all the political parties in Northern Ireland. Let us pause on that: all the political parties. How often do we see that? And joined by businesses and civic groups, too.

Amendments 13, 14, 16, 17 and 20 hang together as a package. Amendment 13 replaces “may” with “must” in Clause 22, Part 1C, and new Clause 8C in Clause 21 in order to stiffen the drafting of the regulations that will be made under these provisions of the Bill. Otherwise, ​the problem is that the protocol either places Northern Ireland in a good place or between two bad things, where it will have its largest internal sales market putting barriers up to it and it will not have genuinely unfettered access to the EU market. That will put businesses in Northern Ireland at serious risk of competitive disadvantage on all sides.

Amendment 14 ensures that, in accessing the market within Great Britain, businesses in Northern Ireland must continue to be able to sell their qualifying goods to Great Britain without tariffs, origin requirements, regulatory import controls, dual authorisations or discrimination in the market. Also, Northern Ireland businesses will enjoy these rights to free access regardless of whether they trade directly with Great Britain or via an Irish port or airport.

Amendment 16 would ensure that any relevant regulations for new requirements on goods traded to and from Northern Ireland to Great Britain cannot come into force without the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly—and, furthermore, that there must be no additional charges or administrative costs for the businesses involved in this trade. The reason for Amendment 16 is that, in their own impact analysis, the UK Government note that exit summary declaration forms will be needed for goods moving from Northern Ireland into Great Britain for the purposes of security and safety, listing the type and weight of goods in order to keep track of what kind of imports or exports are crossing economic borders. The Government estimate the costs as ranging from £15 to £56 per declaration. This too will add costs and friction to the movement of goods. Businesses will need support to adjust to these new requirements. They will also need proper training to adapt to them, and of course any additional costs will inevitably be passed on to consumers, unless the Government ensure there are no such additional costs, which is precisely what this amendment does, and what the Bill does not do.

Amendment 20 requires the Government to develop mitigations to protect Northern Ireland businesses and consumers within the UK internal market. By mitigations we mean demonstrable steps to safeguard their position. But we are not being overprescriptive—I urge the Minister to note this point—as to how this is done. We are simply asking for effective mitigating steps to be delivered by the Government in the way they choose. What objection to that could there possibly be?

It was always going to be the case that the United Kingdom, in moving away from regulatory alignment with the European Union, would put Northern Ireland under strain. The provisions of the revised protocol mean that the full force of this strain will not occur between the United Kingdom and Ireland at the Irish land border, but within the United Kingdom, because consequential checks and controls will be placed on the movement of goods between the rest of the UK and Northern Ireland. The implementation of the protocol has the potential to see Northern Ireland, over time, face increasing barriers to trade with, and be at a competitive disadvantage to, both the internal UK market and the European Union market.

The likelihood of such a situation arising has increased with the UK Government’s dropping of commitments to maintaining regulatory alignment with the European Union in those areas where Northern Ireland is to remain aligned. If the deadline for concluding and ratifying a future UK-EU free trade agreement is 11 months from the date of withdrawal, it is likely to be a very low-ambition free trade agreement, with a range of sensitive products excluded—for example, agri-food products, so crucial to Northern Ireland’s economy. This would lead to significant disruption of the internal UK market and likely lead to increased economic divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

The fundamental point of risk for Northern Ireland arising from the withdrawal agreement is that having differentiated arrangements for Northern Ireland remaining aligned to the EU for the movement of goods allows the rest of the United Kingdom to pursue a hard Brexit, with increasing regulatory divergence from the EU—seemingly the Government’s intention—with inevitable consequences for intra-UK movement between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Hence, again, the necessity for these amendments.

The risk is compounded by the uneasy position Northern Ireland now finds itself in over access for goods moving to and from the Great Britain market. Northern Ireland will be in a place between Britain and the EU and, as such, its businesses and consumers will be dealing with the effects of Brexit in a unique and possibly quite complicated way. There will be checks and controls, the extent and nature of which have yet to be exactly determined. But what we do know is that most businesses in Northern Ireland are small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs. What additional bureaucracy will be imposed on them? How much will it cost them? We and, more importantly, businesses in Northern Ireland simply do not know.

It is likely that all commercial goods coming from GB into Northern Ireland will be subject to customs declarations and there could be tariffs on those goods which are deemed to be at risk of entering the EU single market across the Irish border from Northern Ireland. We and, more importantly, businesses in Northern Ireland do not know what particular goods will be at risk. There may be a process to pay rebates. How long will it take rebates to be paid? We and, more importantly, businesses in Northern Ireland do not know. While it is right that there should be democratic controls through Stormont built in to any new and developing post-Brexit arrangement, to tell SMEs that, perhaps every four years, all might change or all might not change by a vote of the Assembly, is setting forward business planning into a context in which the churn and turbulence of the normal commercial cycle is a mere trifle. It will create huge uncertainty for business investment and planning. As if all this was not difficult enough, the transition period, we are told, will end on 31 December 2020—no ifs, no buts—even though it is starting many months later than originally envisaged. But we are where we are.

This degree of ambiguity for businesses which operate on very small margins is simply not right, especially for a region of the UK whose economic base is far from ​robust. These amendments are essential to mitigate the adverse impact on those businesses to the greatest extent possible. Crucially, they have the backing, as I said, of every commercial and business interest in Northern Ireland. When the right honourable Member for East Antrim was speaking in the other place in support of similar amendments last week—in uncharacteristically temperate and measured terms—he was speaking not just for the DUP. Indeed, I understand that he even gave way to an intervention from the SDLP, the honourable Member for Belfast South. Whose memory goes back far enough to remember the last time that happened?

However, the Government have so far rejected out of hand any attempt to amend the Bill. The pleas of business, commerce and consumers in Northern Ireland, which know what the consequences will be and will have to live with them, were summarily dismissed in the other place last week. “You will just have to trust the Prime Minister”, they were told. Noble Lords from the DUP will have their own views on that proposition: a Prime Minister who told the DUP that he would never agree to a border down the Irish Sea and then did.

If the Government are not to repeat the mistakes of the last 10 years in Northern Ireland, they must not only hear but listen, and not just when crises threaten to engulf the political process. Recently on individual issues, to their great credit, they have listened: on payments to the victims of terrorism and on historical institutional abuse, for example. That is commendable, and I pay particular tribute to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Duncan, on those two key issues of social justice.

I appeal to Ministers to listen again to the critical questions addressed in these amendments. The Government need to listen and treat Northern Ireland, as well as the rest of the UK, with understanding and respect for its place in a UK of equals. Otherwise, the problem with landslides, in politics as in life, is that people get buried underneath them. If what is buried are legitimate hopes and aspirations, whether unionist or nationalist, then that can and will have severely adverse economic and political consequences.

As things stand, one of the best confidence-building measures for the New Decade, New Approach agreement in Northern Ireland, signed the other day, would be for the Government to show that they have listened to business leaders and political representatives right across Northern Ireland, understood their real and valid concerns and will act on them by accepting these very modest but essential amendments.

There is nothing in any of these amendments which should cause the Government any concern—if, that is, Ministers really mean what they say: that any extra administrative processes associated with trade in goods or services across the Irish Sea will be smooth, barrier-free and cost-free. I understand that there are no technical questions of drafting to concern the Government—except maybe the insertion of “must” for “may”—so I trust that the Minister will indicate he can accept these amendments. Otherwise, our intention is to put them to a vote next week. I beg to move.

Text of a letter sent to all Labour MPs and Labour Peers, 11th June 2019:

Dear Colleague

ANTISEMITISM THE LEFT AND LABOUR

We (Daniel Levy and I) attach a statement on ANTISEMITISM THE LEFT AND LABOUR.  We would be grateful for your response since we remain extremely concerned at the manner in which this question continues to create a crisis in our Party.

In essence our argument is this:

Labour must unequivocally expunge antisemitism from its ranks. To do so while standing up for peace and Palestinian rights is possible. Denying the painful Jewish history that led to Israel’s establishment, or the attachment most Jews feel to the largest Jewish community in the world – Israel – does not advance the legitimate struggle of the Palestinians to achieve their full rights and freedoms in the face of Israel’s occupation and discriminatory policies. Labour must and can lead two struggles simultaneously – against antisemitism and for Middle East peace and justice.

Labour’s debilitating antisemitism crisis has so far focused upon process – are those charged with anti-Semitic behaviour being properly disciplined by the Party’s leadership or not? But a procedural solution cannot resolve what is primarily a political problem. Unless the political roots of the problem – which have become a crisis – are honestly confronted, the Party will neither be able to regain nor will it be deserving of the broad support necessary to win general elections. 

Somehow the Party has managed both to alienate the vast majority of Jewish members and the Jewish community while doing nothing to advance the debate on Israel/Palestine, let alone justice for Palestinians. We must eradicate the curse of antisemitism paralysing the Labour Party whilst allowing space for genuine argument about all legitimate options for the future of Israelis and Palestinians.

We wish to see the statement attached adopted by the PLP, NEC and all Candidates and are happy to discuss it further.

Best wishes

 Peter Hain                          Daniel Levy

Daniel Levy is a member of the UK Labour Party. He is currently President of the U.S./Middle East Project, and a former advisor in the Israeli Prime Minister’s office and Israeli negotiator in peace talks with the Palestinians under Israeli Labor Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin.

Labour Peer Peter Hain is a former Labour MP, British Minister for the Middle East, Cabinet Minister and is a longstanding campaigner for Palestinian rights and against apartheid.

View video of event here

Lord Hain (Lab)

My Lords, what a fascinating speech to follow.

Speaking in support of my noble friend’s Motion, I refer to the paper by the European Research Group and Global Britain, entitled Fact—NOT Friction, which insists that all the warnings about a no-deal Brexit are mere myths. It claims that the European Union has promised us tariff-free trade, so we can have our cake and eat it, citing in support the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk. Although he did in indeed propose, on 7 March 2018, that the parties should,

“aim for a trade agreement covering all sectors and with zero tariffs on goods”,

any reading of his speech shows that that was a clear reference to the long-term aspiration of a UK-EU free trading agreement under WTO rules, which will, of course, take years to negotiate. It would follow a deal taking effect after March 29, not no deal. Tusk also made clear that such an agreement,

“will not make trade between the UK and the EU frictionless or smoother. It will make it more complicated and costly than today, for all of us. This is the essence of Brexit”.

Whatever the fantasies of the ERG-type Brexiteers, therefore, once we leave the EU without a deal, WTO non-discrimination rules mean that the EU will be obliged to treat the UK as it treats other non-EU WTO members—not, as has been implied, like the remaining 27 EU countries—unless and until a free trade agreement is in place.

As a European Union member, the UK gains from around 70 additional free trade agreements with non-EU countries such as Japan and Canada which, in a no-deal Brexit, would also be lost. The Department for International Trade has made no real progress in ​persuading each of these countries to agree a rollover of the UK’s current deals as part of the EU. To encourage potential foreign inward investment, a prior UK-EU agreement will need to be in place, so that third countries will know what, if any, EU market access they can achieve from the UK as a platform into the European Union. The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada, despite being the European Union’s deepest free trade agreement yet, covering most goods, has little to offer on services, which make up 80% of the UK economy and 45% of our exports. This agreement took over seven years to negotiate and is still not fully in force.

The EU, with which we have a trade surplus in services, would have no obvious incentive to grant significant openings on services to the UK in a free trade agreement, not least because, under WTO rules, the EU would then be obliged to make similar offers to other countries with which it already has bilateral free trade agreements. For example, CETA explicitly states that Canada will benefit from any new services concessions by the EU to other third countries. This is therefore a major disincentive for the EU to make such deals. Even under a deal along the lines of CETA, to minimise the friction of trading with the EU single market, the UK would need to maintain European regulations in all the relevant sectors, as, for example, do EEA members Norway and Iceland. We would need to replace over 30 EU regulatory bodies and arrange legally workable memorandums of understanding between them and their EU counterparts. This is a process which, again, would take years and be very expensive.

In the event of no deal, the European Commission’s own package of 14 contingency measures, which are allowed by the WTO, specifically warns of delays to the transport of goods—hence the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury’s warnings—because of the need for checks on all UK livestock exports and the application of customs duties and taxes on goods moving between the UK and EU.

These minimalist EU measures were taken, as the Commission explained, to maintain the integrity of the single market and customs union—relating to, for example, financial services, aviation and haulage. These and other sectors such as pharmaceuticals, food and drink, data flows and the car industry, to name but a few, would still face significant disruption and legal uncertainty. All this would have severe implications for competitiveness, for our GDP, and for trade and foreign investment in the UK, especially for advanced manufacturing operating just-in-time systems.

These Brexiteers claim that the UK already trades with non-EU members on WTO terms alone. On the contrary, because of its membership of the EU, the United Kingdom benefits from numerous side agreements with countries such as the US and China that go well beyond WTO provisions. In fact, no EU member trades on WTO terms only; all have at least one bilateral or regional trade agreement with other countries, especially their nearest neighbours.

If we leave the EU with no deal on 29 March, therefore, only WTO terms will apply, including a hard Irish border with its political danger and economic ​damage. The UK will also lose the leverage of the EU bloc—the richest and biggest in the world—and will be weaker, not stronger, in future trade negotiations. A diminished UK will face the unenviable choice of Donald Trump’s “America First” United States or the repressive and expansionist dictatorship of China.

The consequences for citizens, consumers and businesses will be nothing short of catastrophic. In some leave-voting areas, lives will be blighted for generations. The no-deal Brexiteers should come clean and stop peddling myths that all will be fine. It will not. As the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, told the BBC on Monday, their agenda is “snake oil”. No deal must be blocked at all costs and I believe that a people’s vote should be supported to save the country from the ERG-aligned Brexiteers, who have no viable plan of their own, yet still insist on charging on recklessly.

My Lords, having been contacted by someone intimately involved in the case of a powerful businessman using non-disclosure agreements and substantial payments to conceal the truth about serious and repeated sexual harassment, racist abuse and bullying which is compulsively continuing, I feel that it is my duty under parliamentary privilege to name Philip Green as the individual in question, given that the media have been subject to an injunction preventing publication of the full details of a story which is clearly in the public interest.

Watch on Parliament TV

Amendment 3, Moved by Lord Hain

3: Clause 3, page 3, line 7, at end insert—

“( ) The guidance must direct senior officers of Northern Ireland departments, giving due regard to advice from the Northern Ireland Commission for Victims and Survivors, to prepare a scheme to provide a pension to those who are regarded as seriously-injured arising from an incident associated from the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Lord Hain (Lab)

My Lords, Amendment 3 is in my name and that of the noble Lords, Lord Bruce and Lord Cormack, and, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Bew, indicating Cross-Bench support. I will also speak to Amendment 13A in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce.

When I spoke in March, I raised the plight of the 500 or so people severely injured because of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The overwhelming majority were injured through no fault of their own, and face growing into old age desperately unsure about what the future holds for them. Because of their injuries, most of them were unable to build the kind of occupational pensions that they would otherwise have had. Just recently, one of the WAVE Trauma Centre’s injured group, which has been campaigning for a special pension, received a final settlement on her pension contributions in the form of a lump sum. It was taxed at 20%. She received a magnificent £25.39, which, frankly, is an insult to somebody in her situation.

Jennifer had her legs blown off in a no-warning IRA bomb in 1972, when she was 21 years of age. Paul, who was 21 when loyalists shot him six times because their target who lived next door did not turn up, is paralysed from the waist down. He describes the constant pain he lives with as like,

“sitting in a pool of lava”.

Every two days his carers—his wife and his brother—have to use a colonic irrigation system to empty his bowels into a bucket. That is Paul’s reality.

This especially vulnerable group of victims have had to deal with much more than the physical damage inflicted upon them. Peter was 26 when he was shot and paralysed in a case of mistaken identity in 1979. His wife, his childhood sweetheart, was tormented by misplaced guilt because she opened the door and,

“let evil into their home”,

as she described it. Peter had to watch her drink herself to death by the age of 51.

Mary was 17 when she was paralysed in a drive-by sectarian shooting. She was told that a realistic life expectancy was that she would not see her 32nd birthday. More than 40 years on, she is still here. She has had three shoulder replacements because of the strain on her upper body, being confined in a wheelchair. She has had to pay for these privately because if she joined an NHS waiting list she would be immobile.

Those who suffered severe physical injuries during the Troubles in Northern Ireland are, in many ways, the forgotten victims of the conflict. Perhaps there was an assumption that they had been looked after at the material time with generous compensation payments that would see them financially secure for the rest of their lives, but that simply did not happen. Many of the severely injured have lived much longer than the life expectancy assumptions made at the time. Most of the severely injured sustained their injuries during the 1970s and 1980s. Many predated disability discrimination legislation so, even if they could have found work, the chances that the workplace would have been adapted to their needs—for example, for those confined to wheelchairs—were more than remote. All they want is a degree of modest financial security so that they—and in many cases their carers—can live the rest of their lives with as much independence and dignity as possible.​

To that end, I urge the Government to act swiftly to address this cruel legacy of Northern Ireland’s violent past and provide support for the severely injured through the provision of a special pension. Getting the Government both to recognise and to act upon that obligation is the purpose of these two amendments. In terms of the level of pension, the then Victims Commissioner for Northern Ireland suggested a figure of £150 per week or around the current state pension provision. Given the age profile, a lump sum for those aged over 75 would probably be more appropriate.

In any event the cost, including the administration of the pension, either by the Northern Ireland Civil Service or through the DWP, would not be prohibitive. This total cost has been authoritatively estimated to be between £3 million and £5 million annually. These figures clearly indicate that the pension commitment will diminish through the passage of time, even allowing for some provision for a proportion of the pension to go to the carer when the injured person dies. But for the pension to make a real difference to those who need it, it cannot be counted as income for the purposes of qualifying for existing benefits. That is a very important point. It must be “as well as” and not “instead of”, and be in addition to any other pensions and/or benefits that the injured person either is, or will be, in receipt of.

There is a subsidiary issue to be dealt with in relation to the relatively very small number of people who were severely injured by their own hand, but it is quite wrong that the vast majority who were injured through no fault of their own should be denied support because of a specific political blockage that could and should be resolved. These were not people in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were at work. They were at home with their family. They were having a coffee in a café. They were walking home after an evening at the cinema. They were in the right place, where they should have expected to be safe and secure.

Now is the time for the Government to act swiftly, with I hope wide parliamentary backing, after years and years of this case having no response. That is why I speak to this amendment, which simply seeks that the guidance referred to in Clause 3(3) must direct or, as Amendment 13A puts it, provide for,

“senior officers of Northern Ireland departments, giving due regard to advice from the Northern Ireland Commission for Victims and Survivors, to prepare a scheme to provide a pension to those who are regarded as seriously-injured arising from an incident associated from the conflict in Northern Ireland”,

and for that to be backdated, as Amendment 13A requires, to 1 January 2018. I say that because, if this takes some time to implement—if it requires legislation, as I understand may be the case—there must be certainty that this will happen and that, however long it takes to process, it will be backdated so that at least these victims can have something to look forward to.

8.45 pm

This is an opportunity for the Government to show some real compassion for those who have suffered most. I know from conversations that I have had with the Minister that he is on the side of the angels on this matter. I respect him for that. I think that he is trying ​to do his best, and I hope that in his response he can take this matter forward. I do not want to make his life more difficult by anticipating and rebutting the Government’s likely official response, at least so far as it has been stated in the other place and elsewhere.

However, we have been told that this is a devolved matter and that the Government cannot undermine the devolution settlement by interfering or, as I would prefer to describe it, intervening. I will come back to the question of whether the plight of the severely injured is in fact a devolved matter or whether it should properly be treated as a reserved matter for the UK Government, like other legacy issues. However, there are precedents for the Government intervening in devolved areas because it has been the right thing to do. Health is devolved to Northern Ireland. Thanks to the amazing work of Charlotte Caldwell, literally arguing for the life of her son Billy, who suffers from life-threatening epilepsy, the Home Office was forced to move on the use of medical cannabis, which is absolutely essential for his and other sufferers’ treatment. The use of medical cannabis is now permitted in Northern Ireland. Did that interfere with the devolution settlement? Presumably not or it would not have happened.

Recently, the Independent Reporting Commission, set up to bring an end to paramilitary activity and to tackle organised crime in Northern Ireland, reported for the first time. Twenty-five million pounds to back the IRC came from the British Government, not from devolved budgets, to pave the way for those involved in paramilitary activity to make the transition from mafia-style gangsterism to being ordinary law-abiding citizens. Apart from a small but highly dangerous number of dissident republicans, the paramilitary activity that the IRC is focused on is pure gangsterism. Indeed, the highly respected former assistant chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and now chief executive of Co-operation Ireland, Peter Sheridan, argued that these groups should be called paramilitary no longer, but criminal gangs, and I agree. However, this is not a national security issue. Primarily it is a matter for the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland. It is a devolved matter. Criminal justice is devolved yet the Government intervene—absolutely rightly, in my view—to the tune of £25 million. Did that interfere with the devolution settlement? Presumably not.

Injured victims recognise that the paramilitaries who so grievously damaged them have to leave the stage and they do not begrudge this money being used to help Northern Ireland transition, but they wonder how the Government could find this money so quickly when they are told in effect, “Your case is nothing to do with us. Wait for the local politicians to finally bring themselves to discharge the responsibilities for which they were elected, whenever that is—next year, the following year, maybe whenever, if ever”. The reality is that the Government already intervene in devolved matters when it is the right thing to do in the absence of functioning devolved government and a functioning Assembly, and that is as it should be. Indeed, this Bill is a form of intervention.

The Secretary of State made a welcome move in May when she asked the Victims Commissioner to revisit and update her advice on this claim for a ​pension, and I thank the Minister for his role in that. I have absolutely no doubt that the Victims Commissioner will produce advice that is rigorous, objective, costed and workable, and I hope she produces it soon. No one will be plucking figures out of the air. There will be a template that can and should be speedily implemented.

When the Bill was debated in the other place last week, the Secretary of State said that the Victims Commissioner’s advice would sit on a shelf until devolution was restored. That is, in effect, telling those injured victims that they will not be assisted. Instead, they will be abandoned, as they have been for a very long time. An unarguable case for recognition and reparations has been made for nearly eight years now. For most of that time, there has been devolution in Northern Ireland, and all they have got is tea and sympathy because the question of eligibility in relation to the very small number of those “injured by their own hand” is just too difficult for the local parties to resolve. That is why it should and must be done by this Parliament.

We rightly praise politicians in Northern Ireland who are trying to take it to a better place than it was in when I and other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Murphy, were charged with building new political foundations out of the wreckage of a violent past. At the same time, we have to call them out when they dig in behind their entrenched or sectarian positions and refuse to compromise for the greater good of victims, such as those severely injured. So far, the DUP and Sinn Féin remain deadlocked on this issue, and nothing has moved. That is why we must do it for them, so that justice for this most vulnerable and desperate group of citizens can prevail, and when I speak about them I mean the vast majority who were not “injured by their own hand”. The latter can be dealt with separately.

Nevertheless, I firmly believe that the Government’s insistence that this is solely a devolved issue is misplaced and simply wrong. Those campaigning for a pension who were injured through no fault of their own are as much a part of the legacy of Northern Ireland’s violent past as anything else, and the Government are trying to address this. Indeed, it would be hard to find a more physical manifestation of that legacy than Margaret, who has no eyes, pushing the wheelchair of Jennifer, who has no legs. Has the Secretary of State so little compassion for her plight that she will not put the local parties to shame by providing a pension, and quickly? The Government have an overarching responsibility for legacy issues. That is why they are considering responses to their recent consultation paper on legacy issues, for which they have set aside £150 million. It would be absolutely shameful if the people who have suffered so much were told, “We feel sorry for you, but not sorry enough to do anything about it”.

Finally, I wish to say something about the Bill before us that relates directly to the amendment but has wider and deeply worrying implications. I could have made this point at Second Reading, but I make it now. The Government want us to focus on the narrow issue of the supposed clarity given to civil servants in Northern Ireland, in relation to their capacity to maintain ​public services and keep the business of government ticking over in the absence of an Executive and Assembly. What is seriously concerning is how long the Government envisage this democratic void persisting before anything happens. They do not envisage any movement before March next year, and then an additional five months is built in. It is shocking that the Government do not seem to realise that hoping something will turn up is nothing approaching a coherent political strategy to restore devolution. Sadly, while the Government procrastinate, the condition of severely injured victims deteriorates daily, and many fear that they will die before their plight is acknowledged and support given. Time is not on their side. The Government must show that they are prepared to act in the name of justice and decency, and I appeal for support for this amendment if the Minister resists it.

My Lords, I am sure all Members present would wish to endorse the Minister’s final calls at the end of his wide-ranging speech.​

We have grown used to pogroms against minorities at various stages in our history as a country: against Jews intermittently and sometimes continuously over the millennia; against the Irish in the nineteenth century; against Jews again in the 1930s; against black and Asian Britons from the late 1950s until today; and against Muslims in the first two decades of this century. But what is entirely novel today is a toxic convergence of attacks on Jewish, black and Muslim British citizens all at the same time. I am not aware of any period in our history when this has occurred before. It is deadly serious, with many of our citizens living in fear or terror simply because of their religion, race or skin colour. This is not just scandalous, it is criminal.

Let us touch on the sheer scale of the problem, turning first to attacks on Jews and synagogues. The number of anti-Semitic incidents in Britain reached the highest level on record last year, including a 34% increase in the number of violent assaults, according to the Community Security Trust. It stated that in 2017 there were nine incidents involving the,

“desecrations of, or anti-Semitic damage to, synagogues”,

in the UK. In the previous year, there were 11 such incidents. The most recent CST report for the period from January to June 2018 states:

“There were 43 incidents of damage and desecration of Jewish property recorded by CST in the first six months of 2018 … Three of the incidents in this category in the first half of 2018 involved the desecration of Jewish gravestones, eight affected synagogue buildings and 18 happened at people’s homes. All involved some element of anti-Semitic targeting, language or imagery in order to be recorded as anti-Semitic by CST”.

There have been other attacks on Jewish citizens, including on fellow parliamentarians; notably, Luciana Berger MP has been subject to abuse, intimidation and attacks of the vilest kind, not just by fascists, but, I am ashamed to say by a tiny hard-left sect comprising members of the Labour Party backed up by the far left outside. One shouted “traitor” at me when I attended the “Stand Up to Anti-Semitism” rally in Parliament Square in the summer. These people seem to imagine they are promoting Palestinian rights by such attacks; as a robust supporter of justice for the Palestinians since the early 1970s, I can tell them flatly that they are damaging, not enhancing, that vital cause—a message that my party leader might heed as well.

Ironically, the Labour Party has long allied itself with our Jewish citizens and it is the Tory Party that has over the decades given shelter to anti-Semites. Today, as brave Conservative Peers, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, and the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, have pointed out, the Tory Party remains riddled with Islamophobia, and some Tories work with UKIP figures such as Nigel Farage and Trump supporters such as Steve Bannon, who have helped create a climate of fear for Muslims.

As European Parliament Member Claude Moraes wrote in the Guardian in June after about 15,000 supporters of Tommy Robinson, the fascist former leader of the English Defence League, had marched in London:

“Make no mistake, this is an attempt to build an ‘alt-right’, pro-Trump movement in Britain. Saturday’s demo included chants of ‘Make Britain Great Again’”.

That march was organised by a former editor-in-chief of Bannon’s Breitbart, and an ex-EDL deputy leader; it was backed by Bannon, with forces to the right of the Conservative Party in Britain from UKIP as well as ex-BNP and National Front supporters and the Football Lads Alliance.

Then there are the attacks on Muslims and mosques. The latest report of the organisation Tell MAMA—Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks—recorded a total of 1,330 reports of Islamophobic attacks in the United Kingdom in 2017, representing a 30% rise when compared to the previous reporting period. In the same year, Tell MAMA recorded 54 incidents that were,

“perpetrated against mosques, Islamic schools and Islamic cultural centres. They include Islamophobic graffiti, threatening letters, the dumping of pork products outside a building, or interpersonal attacks against people attending a mosque”.

Turning to racist activity, in 2017-18, 94,098 hate crime offences were recorded by the police in England and Wales, an increase of 17% on the previous year. Of these, the great bulk—71,251, or 76%—were race hate crimes and 8,336, or 9%, were religious hate crimes. A lot of this extremism is being orchestrated by, or follows the activity of, far-right groups, such as the racist fascist English Defence League and the Football Lads Alliance, as well as, now, the Democratic Football Lads Alliance, or DFLA—a contradiction in terms, I would think—set up in the wake of the London Bridge terror attack in 2017, which has been supported by Tommy Robinson.

On 18 June 2017, Darren Osborne from Wales drove a van into a crowd of people gathered outside a north London mosque—the one referred to, I believe, by the Minister—killing one man and injuring 12 people. He had also intended to murder the leader of the Opposition and the Mayor of London. He had no history of extremism but his ex-partner claimed he had been radicalised in just three weeks by devouring anti-Muslim extremist propaganda online, after which he was ready to kill innocent people. Eyewitnesses reported that he shouted, “I want to kill all Muslims!” The judge said that Osborne had been,

“rapidly radicalised over the internet by those determined to spread hatred of Muslims”.

Evidence showed that he was infatuated with Tommy Robinson and the Nazi-like Britain First organisation.

Then there is Britain’s Young Right Society, run by a Breitbart journalist who is an associate of Trump adviser Steve Bannon. HOPE not hate revealed that the group was “frequently awash with appalling racist” content, white supremacy, jokes about the Holocaust and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. It was also used to organise the members for events. Because it was formed secretly, it was exposed only when one member alerted HOPE not hate to its existence.

Let us take just a few recent examples of the effect in our communities of these groups’ extremist activities of religious persecution. A mosque and a Sikh gurdwara in Leeds were attacked in the early hours of a Tuesday morning in early June in what police treated as hate crimes. The assaults followed a march in Leeds the previous Friday in defence of jailed fascist and anti-Muslim extremist Tommy Robinson, who has a long record of far-right activity, criminality and violence. ​Police said the main door at Jamia Masjid Abu Huraira Mosque in Beeston, Leeds, was deliberately set on fire at around 3.30 am. Police were called to the nearby gurdwara in Beeston, at around 4.20 am, after someone had set the door on fire. Councillor Gohar Almas, a local Labour councillor was reported as saying:

“Somebody tried to set the mosque and the gurdwara alight. The mosque is bang opposite a primary school. What kind of message is this sending to the children?”

One person at the gurdwara spoke of a “sentiment of fear” among people following the attacks, especially the half dozen who live in the gurdwara, including two elderly couples. A volunteer at the gurdwara told “Leeds Live”:

“It is a big concern. I have got sadness with me. This is something which should never have happened”.

Rafaqat Ali from the mosque told local media that he was “upset and shocked”. Another mosque member added, “My kids go there and are scared now, because of this attack”.

The timing was significant—this is a point I want to emphasise—because these attacks followed Tommy Robinson’s supporters demonstrating in Leeds after he was jailed for breaching a court order. Various fascists had organised protests to defend his so-called free speech. However, as local councillor Gohar Almas said, allowing Nazis free speech is dangerous. He said that the only thing that should not be tolerated is intolerance; spreading hate speech, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and homophobia should not be tolerated. He added that the march by Tommy Robinson supporters had “absolutely” given racists more confidence. Gohar said, “We have fought this before. We are a united and resilient community—a community of communities. We are here to unite people, not divide people, and we will not let people divide us”. Let us send a message of solidarity to him and his mosque, and to other local religious institutions.

Only the other Saturday, fascist thugs blocked a bus on one of the roads next to Trafalgar Square because the driver was a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf. Video footage of the incident showed one of these thugs appearing to give the “Sieg Heil” salute toward the bus. A photo shows a topless man holding two fingers up to the bus driver through the glass. Others on this fascist mobilisation banged on the bus windows with “Free Tommy” placards or brandished ones reading “Britain Loves Trump”.

The point I wish to stress is this: violent attacks against our Muslim, Jewish and black citizens flow from far-right mobilisations and far-right activism as night follows day. There is an umbilical link between activity by racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic extremists and these sorts of vile attacks. Over the past year or so, the sheer scale of these far-right protests, and the numbers in attendance, is unprecedented.

In Manchester last year, 3,000 Tommy Robinson supporters were mobilised. On 24 June 2017, in London, the Football Lads Alliance mobilised nearly 5,000. On 7 October last year, the Football Lads Alliance mobilised 10,000, maybe more. On 18 March this year, at Speakers’ Corner in London, Tommy Robinson supporters numbered 500. On 24 March, in Birmingham, the Football Lads Alliance and the Democratic Football ​Lads Alliance mobilised up to 5,000 in total. On 5 May this year—“Tommy Robinson Day”, they called it—5,000 supporters marched in his honour. On 19 May, in Manchester, the Football Lads Alliance mobilised 300 people. On 26 May, in London, “Free Tommy Robinson” supporters mobilised 400. In Leeds, on 30 May, “Free Tommy Robinson” supporters mobilised 400. On 2 June 2018, in Manchester, the Democratic Football Lads Alliance supporters numbered around 1,800. On 9 June, in London, “Free Tommy Robinson” supporters numbered 15,000. On 23 June, in London, UK freedom marchers, made up of various far-right groups including some UKIP members, numbered 2,500. On 14 July, in London, “Free Tommy Robinson” supporters numbered up to 10,000. These are big numbers—far bigger than anything I have seen in modern decades. That is why we need actively to support anti-racist groups such as Unite Against Fascism, Stand Up to Racism, HOPE not hate, Show Racism the Red Card and Kick It Out.

When I helped launch the Anti-Nazi League in September 1977, it was to meet a growing threat, both on the streets and in elections, from the Nazi National Front. Working with Rock Against Racism to organise national carnivals and local gigs, but also by confronting the National Front whenever and wherever its members tried to march or rally, we eventually managed defeat it. Then, over 20 years later, the British National Party took its place, and again we had to mobilise to defeat it. However, the threat today of religious and racial persecution is far more insidious and dangerous.

Today’s threat is occurring right across Europe, against a backdrop of despair at neoliberal economic policies which generate massive job insecurity and hopelessness—the habitual fertile breeding ground for racism, fascism and anti-Semitism. From Germany to Greece, from Sweden to Switzerland, from Britain to Belgium, the far right is growing and succeeding, targeting immigrants and religious minorities—familiar scapegoats for collective government economic failure. It must not be allowed to succeed. We need a modern Keynesian alterative to rescue our communities from the austerity and misery of neoliberalism. As we saw so fatally in the 1930s, if that does not occur, persecution of religious and other minorities by racists, fascists, anti-Semites and Nazis will gain increasing traction.

Lord Hain (Lab)

My Lords, I, too, welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, who, I am sure, will recharge the flailing Brexiteer case in this House with her great eloquence.

This Bill could have huge significance for people’s jobs, people’s rights and the economy, because it illustrates how Brexit puts at risk not only our trade agreements with the other 27 member states of the EU, but agreements with around 70 so-called third countries around the world that collectively account for around two-thirds of the UK’s trade. In a no-deal scenario on exit day—which is enthusiastically advocated by many Brexiteers—we risk losing not only tariff-free access to the biggest single market in the world but the benefits of our participation in the EU agreements with these third countries.

It is also important that we debunk the Brexiteer myth that Britain will be freed to conquer new global trade markets if, and only if, we leave the single market and the customs union. Germany is in both, and its ​biggest trading partner is China. There are absolutely no barriers within the EU preventing us getting a greater share of global trade.

A further problem, once the UK ceases to be regarded as EU territory, is that for the purposes of complex rules of origin which define when a product benefits from tariff-free quotas, UK component parts and products will no longer qualify. This could have a huge impact on UK trade, especially in sectors such as the automotive industry and aerospace, where complex supply chains currently operate freely within the EU.

All these difficulties are exemplified—noble Lords will not be surprised to hear me mention it again and again—in the case of the Irish border. InterTradeIreland’s report last March, Cross Border Trade and Linkages, found that the vast bulk of cross-border trade is accounted for by firms that trade simultaneously in both directions. Although these two-way traders amount to just 18% of firms, they account for over 60% of imports and 70% of exports. The data also shows that most cross-border trade occurs in intermediate inputs—components of final products—and highlights the considerable interconnectedness of cross-border supply chains on the island of Ireland.

In addition to being exposed to costs from customs duties and increased administration, two-way trade also risks disruption from delays, particularly where supply-chain links are concentrated in perishable food products such as milk. Milk tankers cross the Irish border about 33,000 times a year. Northern Ireland produces around 2.2 billion litres of milk a year, of which some 30% is processed in the Republic. Milk and dairy products move in both directions, sometimes several times. For example, cream from Northern Ireland milk is removed in Virginia, County Cavan, in Ireland and sent back to the Baileys Irish Cream plant in Mallusk, County Antrim, in Northern Ireland. We should not think of trade across the Irish border as being confined to the island; much of it is connected to global trade as well. For example, this complex cross-border supply chain underpins global exports in powdered milk products from the island of Ireland, north and south. It is exposed on two fronts by Brexit. First, in the event of a hard Brexit, the north-south milk trade would become unprofitable due to tariffs ranging from 40% to as much as 64% depending on fat content. The second concern is that when the UK exits the EU, it will no longer be included in EU export agreements. It could take a period of years to put new export agreements into place for key milk powder markets. What is supposed to happen in the meantime to those dairy farmers and the thousands of other jobs dependent on these supply chains? The Brexiteers have absolutely no idea.

And for those no-deal zealots, in July, Pascal Lamy, the former director-general of the World Trade Organization, described as “pie in the sky” the idea that there would be no border on the island of Ireland if there was no deal. Therefore, as Labour has rightly argued, a new comprehensive customs union with the European Union after Brexit is the best way to protect jobs and the economy, as well as avoiding a potentially disastrous hard border on the island of Ireland. That is what the TUC, the CBI and major businesses such as Jaguar Land Rover and National Grid want.​

For the last 40 years, when trade deals have been negotiated by the EU on behalf of its members, scrutiny has been delivered through the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade and in the UK by the European Scrutiny Committee of the House of Commons. These mechanisms will no longer apply after Brexit. But surely trade negotiations must be transparent and open to scrutiny by stakeholders and the public. As things stand, these new arrangements with third countries which the Government call “continuity agreements” would be excluded from the Government’s new arrangements, admittedly still lacking in detail, for structured engagement with stakeholders in relation to the new trade agreements announced by the Secretary of State for International Trade on 16 July.

My Labour colleagues in the Commons successfully argued that the Government’s Bill as introduced was woefully deficient in that it accorded yet again a number of Henry VIII powers to Ministers but made no provision for parliamentary scrutiny, as takes place in other countries including Germany, New Zealand and Australia. Following an unprecedented campaign by trade unions, the trade justice movement and industry and consumer representatives, the Government, in fear of their own Back-Benchers, tabled amendments very late in the day addressing at least some of the issues. However, the Government simultaneously tabled an amendment that would allow Ministers to ignore these scrutiny provisions should they so choose. So much for taking back control. Furthermore, those provisions for enhanced parliamentary scrutiny did not extend to the clauses relating to the UK’s future membership of the WTO’s Government Procurement Agreement covered by the Bill. This is very worrying, as protections relating to public procurement need to be in place for public services such as the NHS and the public sector more generally in the UK. The Bill remains seriously deficient and still needs significant amendment to be made fit for purpose on these scrutiny issues.

I find it mind-boggling that, with the clock fast running right down, we still have absolutely no idea how, after Brexit, we will be trading with our biggest partner, Europe, or any other country outside. No wonder that investors and traders are giving up on the British economy and that Jacob Rees-Mogg has had to volunteer that we will be poorer for decades. He asserts that it is worth it because we will be free of Brussels: free, free, free at last, but poorer, poorer, poorer as well.

As they confirmed recently, Boris Johnson, David Davis, Liam Fox, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Iain Duncan Smith and the rest—and quite possibly the noble Lord, Lord Lilley—have no plan for their cherished Brexit. Meanwhile, government Ministers admit that we have no idea where we are going but we are going there anyway. What a way to run a country—no wonder the rest of the world thinks that reliable old Britain has gone barmy, with this Parliament a willing accomplice to what is rapidly becoming a national tragedy. The trade unions and others are providing a lead to rescue the country from this madness by demanding a people’s vote on the final deal. I hope that we will all support that.​