I pay tribute to Members for the tone in which the debate has been conducted. I place on record my thanks to the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis); it is a pleasure to stand with him again in protecting our country’s interest, this time a little closer to home. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who was with him on the Opposition Front Bench earlier. She was an extremely able predecessor in his role and a great help.
I repeat the hon. Gentleman’s thanks to the intelligence services, who have done so much to prepare the evidence in various different ways which has enabled us to support these various actions, although much of the information has been public, so it has been able to prepare it in the usual way. I thank him for his comments about the way in which this work has been done. As he recognises, it has been a little quicker than we would normally go, but I am grateful that the Scottish National party and the Labour party recognise that there is an urgency to this matter and have supported it.
I will briefly answer the hon. Gentleman’s questions about the timing of the proscription. This is, quite rightly, detailed legal work. The judgment has to be made extremely carefully. It must be not only lawful but proportionate, and we must get that balance right. As others have mentioned, proscription is an extremely powerful tool. It is not a political tool or to be used at the whim of a Government or Minister to silence critics or debate. This tool should be used only to protect the British people from terrorism—that is its purpose. We need to make absolutely clear that we are using it appropriately and only when necessary. All of us in this House, I hope, support freedom of views and freedom of expression. We have all heard things we may not like, but we would defend the right of people to say them, and we must ensure we are extremely careful about that.
The hon. Gentleman raised a question about the definition of extremism. As he knows, we are working on that. I pay a huge tribute to those working on that and to the Government’s countering extremism adviser, Robin Simcox, who has been an extremely important voice in much of the debate. I thank Members on the Opposition Front Bench for their support.
I turn to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who has been a good friend of mine, but more importantly a good friend to his community for a very long time. He is tireless in the campaign against antisemitism. He rightly identifies what we are seeing today as being in the mould of the fascist movements of the 1930s. We could easily mistake some of the words on the works of Hizb ut-Tahrir as coming from the voices of some of the fascist leaders of the 1920s. They bear a stark resemblance to them. He is absolutely right that the online activities must be banned, and he will be pleased to hear that they are: all activities by this group are banned.
My hon. Friend is also right to say that Jews should not be afraid to be in London at any time, and certainly not on a Saturday or a Sunday, when many people want to go out shopping or just to be with friends and family. These protests, sadly, have not only been vile demonstrations of some of the worst parts of our community, but radicalising moments in themselves. I know the police are aware of that; the Home Secretary and I have both spoken to them about that.