Murnaghan Interview with Luciana Berger, Labour MP, 4.12.16

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now the far right are parasites feeding on people’s concerns, that’s according to Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader.  He was speaking in Prague yesterday but is it the rise of the far right that people need to be worried about or the rise of extremism more generally?  Well I’m joined now by the Labour MP, Luciana Berger, a very good morning to you.  Now talk personally first of all about some of the attacks, some of the abuse you’ve been getting from the far right?

LUCIANA BERGER: Well I’ll be going to court on Monday for my third case of someone from the far right who has directed extreme levels of – it is more than abuse, it’s anti-Semitism, in my direction. I have had one person who has served a jail sentence, one person who is awaiting their sentencing, has been convicted of sending me anti-Semitic death threats and I’ve got this case coming up on Monday.  More broadly, generally, I have seen first-hand and many colleagues have seen first-hand this increase of the noise and volume.  It was shown in an academic report that was in the press last week that there were 50,000 Tweets in the wake of our colleague Jo Cox’s death.

DM: Do you think in an age of social media it is the fact that it is just easier to do this kind of thing under the anonymity in some cases that you are able to get behind it or is it symptomatic then of more right wing feeling and drift to the right among sections of the population?

LUCIANA BERGER: I do think we are seeing a shift to the right and that’s why I think as politicians and within politics we’ve got a responsibility with the discourse we use to make sure that we don’t encourage it.  We can also look at the government’s own figures that have shown that through the Channel process, which is part of the anti-terrorism strategy Prevent, that they’ve seen an increase in the number of people referred specifically into that from the far right, from around 100 to around 500 and we’re seeing lots of under 18s as well particularly included in those figures who have been inspired by the far right and I think that should cause all of us concern.  We should be rooting out extremism wherever it rears its ugly head and I think it is really important that we don’t ignore the very specific of the far right that we’re seeing in this country and right across Europe as well.

DM: Well there we are and your leader making a speech yesterday in the heart, the middle of Europe and we know about its experiences with the far right, with fascism.  Do you accept what he says there, that some of the problems are real but the solutions people go for are wrong?

LUCIANA BERGER: Well indeed in terms of what the far right offers, I don’t believe those are the right solutions and that’s why it is incumbent on all of us to come up with the right answers which address people’s very genuine concerns particularly as we’ve seen increased challenges with employment, we’re seeing an increase in the different between people at the top and people at the bottom, in equality difference is getting greater and therefore we have to come up with the answers that address those challenges and it is often the far right that prey on people’s insecurities as we are seeing, whether it’s in France with the rise of Marine Le Pen, we’ve got the Austrian elections today for their president and it is very likely we might see a far right president elected over there today.

DM: Luciana Berger, very good to see you, thank you very much indeed.