Debate on the Address, 25 June 1987
Mr. Speaker,
As I rise to deliver my maiden speech in this House, may I begin by thanking the fine people of Southwark and Bermondsey for their confidence in me? This constituency and its predecessors have had the great honor of being represented by my friend, Simon Hughes, and my new Alliance colleague, Baron Mellish, for over forty years. I pray that I may be as half as good as they have been for this constituency, and I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to make my maiden speech during this debate.
While my two predecessors in this seat have had illustrious careers, as to my example for serving this constituency, I wanted to look back a little further. As this is the 50th Parliament of this United Kingdom, I went to Hansard, and looked to see who represented Southwark in that first Parliament. They were two men, from two different parties, each with their own things to look up to. The first, Henry Thornton, is perhaps better known as an economist and writer. During his tenure in the Commons he wrote what is widely considered to be his
magnum opus, the book
An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain. Thornton also was a leader, along with his cousin, William Wilberforce, of the Clapham Sect and was a staunch abolitionist.
George Tierney, was a Whig who would later be the Leader of the Opposition in the Commons. Tierney is commemorated at Westminster Abbey, with an inscription that reads: “In Parliament he was long conspicuous for a style of oratory peculiarly his own; plain, familiar, forcible and persuasive, abounding in proofs of natural shrewdness, and strokes of original humour, and sustained throughout by an accurate knowledge of details and an unostentatious command of clear language, and sound argument. Without having obtained the rewards of wealth or station, he secured the respect and esteem of his contemporaries by the consistency of his political principles, and his unwearied activity in supporting them, by the simplicity of his manners, and the benevolence of his character and by an unaffected reverence for religion.” Certainly, Mr. Speaker, we could use more like both of them today, and I hope to live up to their legacies.
And what an area we have all gotten to represent! The northern area of Southwark is home to a wide array of people, from those who prefer city life in the Cathedral area, to those who prefer the more residential feel of Bermondsey and Rotherhithe. Landmarks like Tower Bridge, the great edifice of the Bankside Power Station, Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle, the only surviving coaching inn - the George Inn, the Imperial War Museum, and the original site of William Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre are spread out across my constituency. Often overlooked as the “younger sibling,” as it were, to the Cities of London and Westminster, Southwark is the owner of a lengthy history and a very diverse place to live, learn, and grow.
And it is the people who live, learn, and grow in Southwark that I wish to discuss this day. The Gracious Speech states: “My Government will work for greater trust and confidence between East and West and for progress, especially on human rights, at the Vienna Review Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe.” That’s very nice, isn’t it? It certainly sounds nice. Yet, as my learned friend from Tweeddale, Ettrick, and Lauderdale pointed out earlier, many clauses of this Gracious Speech riddled with “newspeak.” I would argue that this one is one of the most egregious usages of newspeak in it.
Human rights are good. Progress on human rights issues, Mr. Speaker, is even better. But there’s only mention of human rights in the East.
Human rights are not just an issue for one area of the world - they matter here, there, and everywhere. Most egregiously, in my opinion, are the issues in South Africa, with their apartheid policies. The Prime Minister had to be cajoled into the limited economic sanctions we currently have by our Commonwealth partners. She would not meet with human rights activist and politician Oliver Tambo. Human rights issues aren’t just a talking point to use on her issues of choice - the Prime Minister must, on behalf of this nation, commit to a global strategy on human rights and using Britain’s place in the world, as a leading western nation, as a member of the Security Council, and as a country with soft and hard power. We have the soapbox from which to encourage our fellow nations to respect the human rights of all peoples - we must use it.
But that has to start at home as well. The European Convention on Human Rights has not yet been fully enjoined to our legal system. It must be enacted into British law, and we must support it with the appropriate bodies that help our Government protect the rights of all. Of course, we all know that
this Government will not do that.
They could, but it would require a u-turn from the lady who won’t - but she’s also the lady who should.
I wonder how many on the Government benches today have met and worked with an openly gay person. I know members of the opposition have had the opportunity to get to know the member for Islington South and Finsbury and to work with him, and I have been blessed by getting to act alongside my friend Ian McKellen in a number of plays. However, the best thing for me was getting to meet and work with the writer Larry Kramer. Larry is a gay man who founded a charity to support men with HIV/AIDS. He also wrote a play about it, entitled
The Normal Heart. But this was not Larry’s main inspiration, you see. He was inspired by visiting Dachau, and he wanted to make a point.
The Normal Heart, I believe, is not a play about AIDS - it is a play about inaction. It is about how our treatment of others can harm them. It is a play fit for this moment in British history.
Lord Halsbury’s bill is about our treatment of others. It is about demonizing what is a perfectly fine and normal way to be. If this bill is passed during this Parliament, it will cause undue amounts of harm to the young men and women find out that they are gay. This bill, which the Government should not support, would further the pervasive and irrational fear of people who are not like us, set a precedent for further anti-gay legislation, and damn our efforts to treat HIV/AIDS as the public health crisis it is.
One of Southwark’s most famous residents once wrote that “idle weeds are fast in growth.” This weed might not be so idle, but it will grow fast. We violate the civil and human rights of gay people when we treat them as less than. It is up to us to set an example to the world. We are signatories to a document that calls on us to prohibit discrimination against “sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinions, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.”
Allow me once more to quote the Bard, this time from
Henry V:
“The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions.” We are all equal and deserve equal protections, regardless of who we are.
Whether we want to replace “king” in that quote with “gay man,” “South African,” “immigrant,” or whatever kind of category we feel like, the truth remains the same. It is time for us to take human rights away from the category of a “national security” issue and place it where it belongs - a “human decency” issue.
I close with the words of a parliamentarian I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, the great William Wilberforce. I have amended them a little to better fit our current situation. May the words of this British hero inspire us and call us to further action:
- When we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion, and of God? Sir, the nature and all the circumstances of this are now laid open to us; we can no longer plead ignorance, we can not evade it; it is now an object placed before us, we can not pass it; we may spurn it, we may kick it out of our way, but we can not turn aside so as to avoid seeing it; for it is brought now so directly before our eyes that this House must decide, and must justify to all the world, and to their own consciences, the rectitude of the grounds and principles of their decision.