House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP Bob Blackman describes the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, culminating in the Holocaust.

"There were large numbers of people involved in this and it was a systematic attempt," he says.

He says a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau is "seared in my conscience".

Mr Blackman also praises new film Denial, about British historian David Irving, accused of denying the Holocaust, which is released on Holocaust Memorial Day next Friday.

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour MP Louise Ellman says Holocaust Memorial Day provides an opportunity to "reflect on current anti-Semitism".

She tells the House: "Anti-Semitism is, indeed, a virus. It spans different religions, different political parties, and it changes its form over time."

Mrs Ellman says there has been a "resurgence" of anti-Semitic incidents and comments. While most Jewish people in the UK "will go about their lives without experiencing anti-Semitism [but] there is a profound unease across the UK's Jewish community", she says.

She argues that anti-Semitism can be "found in extreme Islamist sources" as well as in Christianity and on the political left as well as the right.

"Peope who declare themselves to be anti-racist are not necessarily opposed to anti-Semitism or even understand what anti-Semitism is," she says, to murmurs of approval from colleagues.

She says she finds this shocking "as a person of the left" but adds that there is a "fightback".

House of Lords
Parliament

The Bishop of Leeds says that western liberalism has become complacent, saying that it is not a "natural given or an inalienable right". 

"Progress is not inevitable," he says.

He also warns that the corruption of language and truth is "dangerous for everyone" - referencing both the EU referendum and the American Presidential election.

"Who are the elites?" he asks, saying that the word is confused when they are "condemned and ridiculed by public school and Oxbridge educated journalist-politicians who command six figure incomes". 

House of Commons
Parliament

Former communities secretary Eric Pickles recalls a visit to the site of Treblinka extermination camp in Poland last year.

"Treblinka is unambiguously a death camp," he says.

"The best estimate is that somewhere between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews and around 2,000 Roma were killed in Treblinka's gas chambers. More Jews were killed in Treblinka than in any other Nazi extermination camp apart from Auschwitz. It's a grim place."

Having tweeted his observations, he says, he received a tweet claiming that "nobody died at Treblinka".

He tells the House: "To forget or belittle continues the Holocaust."

House of Lords
Parliament

Observers and commentators have noted a rise in populist and nationalist politics across the world in recent years, and especially in 2016.

Some have suggested this poses a challenge to the existing "liberal international order". 

This term is widely understood to mean the framework of liberal political and economic rules, embodied in a network of international organisations and regulations, established following World War II.

The term has been defined by Professor G John Ikenberry as "order that is open and loosely rule-based".  

"Populism" is seen as a political movement rejecting an existing elite by mobilising large parts of the population. 

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour MP Peter Kyle condemns comments which he says "trivialise" the Holocaust and make it easier for those "on the malicious path of outright Holocaust denial".

This includes "calling those we disagree with Nazis or claiming somebody's action is just like the Holocaust", he says, quoting from a speech by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid to the Holocaust Educational Trust last night.

The Labour MP adds: "We as individuals and as a political party must do more, not only to react swiflty when there is anti-Semitic activity - we should be doing more to prevent it in the first place, because the point of offence is the point at which we know we have failed."

House of Lords
Parliament

The Bishop of Derby tells peers that Nietzsche wrote about "psychological bonding" that creates a "expression of anger" or a movement "that is headless".

Such a headless movement is, he says, like "Trump's tweeting, very difficult to deal with".

Thomas Hobbes can help us, he says.

He explains that the philosopher Hobbes believed people were essentially disunited but were brought together under a "covenant" of shared values and common purpose.

He goes on to say this covenant can dissolve and people will re-bond over an issue producing a "cry of help".

The responsibility of those in power is to hear those cries and reexamine the covenant.

House of Commons
Parliament

The next debate concerns Holocaust Memorial Day 2017, which falls on 27 January.

Opening the debate, Labour MP Peter Kyle says Holocaust Memorial Day has been observed in the UK since 2001, as a result of a private members' bill from former Labour MP Andrew Dismore.

"It's necessary to pause because of the enormity of the Holocaust," he says, adding that it was "the first and only time" there was an attempt to murder an entire religious and ethnic group in history.

House of Commons
Parliament

"The long-standing position of the UK is that it can neither prescribe a solution to the situation in Kashmir nor act as a mediator," says Foreign Office minister Alok Sharma.

He adds that the UK wants to strengthen its bilateral relationships with India and Pakistan and will continue to work to ensure "channels of dialogue remain open".

He professes himself "very concerned" about violence in Indian-administered Kashmir and says that pellet guns "have been replaced by chilli powder shells".

The government is aware of the importance of Kashmir to many people in Britain, the minister tells MPs.

Westminster Hall

Health Minister Nicola Blackwood responds to the debate for the government.

She says that the government is aware of the distress that infertility causes, and says it is important to remember that the individual stories heard in the debate are "not isolated cases".

The minister says that it is important that the NHS provides access to fertility services, but tells MPs that the availability of these treatments has always been a matter for local determination. 

There are not easy decisions to make, Ms Blackwood says; but tells the room that the government does expect the decisions to be made fairly.  

She says that she hopes MPs present see how seriously the government takes this issue. 

After her speech and a quick conclusion from Steve McCabe, the debate adjourns. 

House of Lords
Parliament

Lib Dem Lord Ashdown tells peers that he is "struck" by comparisons between our age and 1930s:

"A surge of nationalism, free trade withering away, protectionism on the rise, vulgarity succeeding over decency, the ugly voices heard over the quiet voice of reason."

"I don't say we are not to blame," he says - "we are" - but adds that the problem is not who to blame but what to do. 

He asks why people's movements have to be "about the nasty, ugly things" and calls for a movement giving voice to the "decent moderate liberal centre".

House of Commons
Parliament

They waged two wars over it: why do India and Pakistan dispute Kashmir?  

Read more here.

House of Commons
Parliament

Shadow Foreign Office minister Liz McInnes says many MPs have highlighted the right to "self-determination" during the debate.

"The Kashmiri people have seen conflict perpetually on the rise in the last year," she says.

She adds that she is one of the MPs who has called for "a ban on pellet guns" and criticises India's Public Safety Act, saying it fails to observe "due process".

The Labour spokeswoman says more that 80 people have been killed in unrest in Kashmir in the past seven months, while both India and Pakistan have been "cranking up the levels of rhetoric and military action on the border".

Labour's policy is to "allow all parties that are directly involved to determine the future through peaceful dialogue and co-operation". Ms McInnes states.

House of Commons
Parliament

The SNP "wholeheartedly supports" today's backbench motion on Kashmir, says MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh.

She says the UK can engage with India and Pakistan "as friends of both nations" to encourage an end to violence.

"We wholeheartedly support the right of Kashmiris to determine their own future," she says, adding:

"Wherever human rights abuse occurs, we must call it out. But it must feel to so many in different countries that we prioritise the human rights of some over those of others. 

"That cannot, must not. will not continue."

House of Lords
Parliament

Conservative Lord Tugendhat argues that populism and nationalism are the symptoms, not the disease.

The disease, he says, is that governments and parliaments have failed to take "sufficient account" of "legitimate public concerns".

How much are we as individuals to blame? he asks.

House of Lords
Parliament

A slightly out-of-breath Lord Bruce arrives in the chamber in time to begin the debate entitled: challenges to the liberal international order posed by the development of populism and nationalism around the world.

He begins by asking how did we get here and what can we do about it.

He argues that loss of inequality and feelings of alienation have been exacerbated by "conspicuous consumption" of those at the top creating a "ferment" that was exploited by populist and nationalist movements. 

He urges people "not to overreact" but nor to "just keep buggering on". 

"We should not succumb to wreckers. We must stand up to them with a reassertion of liberal values."

House of Commons
Parliament

DUP MP Jim Shannon says Parliament should "use every diplomatic influence we have to bring about change" in Kashmir.

He alleges that Christians in the region are subject to attacks by "Hindu nationalists", adding:

"Ask Christians in Kashmir whether they feel free to express their faith. No they don't."

Image source, Aarabu Ahmad Sultan

Report from Aarabu Ahmad Sultan in Srinagar  

Fourteen-year-old Insha Mushtaq, a resident of Indian-administered south Kashmir, is convulsing in pain on a bed in the intensive care unit of a Srinagar hospital, as her mother Raziya Begum sits by helplessly.

The girl's face is swollen and totally disfigured and doctors say her condition is critical.

Miss Mushtaq was hit by a volley of "pellets" - tiny pieces of metal shrapnel - that have been used against civilian protesters by Indian security forces, since unrest began after the death of popular separatist militant Burhan Wani.

Read more.

Westminster Hall

Conservative MP Ed Vaizey speaks next in the debate and begins by talking about the "huge emotional and health impacts" of not being able to have children or have access to treatment for the condition.

He also says that it is "quite clear" that the signals being given are that fertility services are "somehow a second class service", and that MPs should know that treating an issue as a "second order issue" stores up significant problems.

Mr Vaizey uses the example of the large scale raising of the issue of mental health in recent years by government and Parliament as proof of this.

He says that the only way to reverse the attitude that an aspect of health is a "second class issue" is by sustained campaigning.