AM (Leader of the Brexit Party
Group): First Minister, you spoke last week about your desire
to commence the first part of the Equality Act in Wales, so this
week I'll ask you about section 20 and Schedule 2 of that Act. They
provide for statutory investigation by the Equality and Human
Rights Commission when an organisation is believed to have
unlawfully discriminated against people because of their ethnicity
and religious beliefs. It's happened once before in politics for
the BNP. Is the EHRC right now to investigate the , and do you agree with
when he says he is deeply ashamed
of what your party has become?
(First Minister of
Wales): Llywydd, let me deal with the substantive issue,
rather than the peripheral ones, first. The substantive issue is
to do with anti-Semitism, and I say here again on the floor of
the Assembly, as I've said regularly whenever I've had the
opportunity, that anti-Semitism has no part in the in Wales and no part in Welsh
life, and we will continue to work with Jewish organisations to
make sure that the contribution that Jewish communities have made
to Wales is properly understood and recognised, and where there
are instances of anti-Semitism of any sort, then those must be
dealt with, and dealt with rapidly.
The Member asks me about the EHRC inquiry, and he'll be pleased
to know, I'm sure, that the Welsh is not within the scope of
that inquiry.
AM: Thank you for that
answer. I wonder why that is thought not to be within the scope.
One Labour staffer who bravely spoke to BBC Panorama said
investigators were undermined, when given cases, by people
wanting leniency on anti-Semitism, then taking those cases away.
Often, that was people from Jeremy Corbyn's office, but isn't it
also what you did, First Minister? I hear the previous First
Minister muttering, but when one of your Assembly Members made
what were widely considered to be anti-Semitic remarks, she was
suspended from your group and your predecessor referred her to
the for investigation. Yet,
according to The Jewish Chronicle, once you took over as First
Minister, and I quote,
'No consideration was given to the fact that UK Labour had yet to
conclude their investigation into her remarks',
since, and I quote,
'she might have been a bit stupid',
but this was 'our Jenny'. The Jewish Chronicle continued:
'Mark (Drakeford) and almost the entire group, barring Alun,
Lynne and Vaughan seemed determined to get her back as quickly as
they could.'
First Minister, many of your AMs oppose becoming your leader, and
seem none too keen on him becoming Prime Minister, but you were
one of his original supporters. Did you know then that he had
complained when his council took down a grotesque anti-Semitic
mural? Do you agree with him that Hobson's anti-Semitic book,
Imperialism, was 'brilliant'? And what do you think meant when he said Zionists
'don't understand English irony'? First Minister, for how much
longer will you and your party and your Government tolerate what
your deputy leader rightly describes as anti-Jewish racism?
: Well, Llywydd, I'm
not going to be drawn into answering questions that have nothing
to do with my responsibilities on the floor of this National
Assembly. I have set out here my views on anti-Semitism and the
way in which these matters are conducted here in Wales. Nothing
will deflect me from standing up to those values and those
principles, and nothing that the Member wishes to draw me into
will be used to try and deflect me from my determination that the
rights of all communities here in Wales are respected. Wherever
they come from, whatever their heritage, their contribution here
in Wales is valued, recognised and celebrated, and that's the
sort of culture that I want to see, politically and socially,
across the whole of our nation.
