MR. ROBERT SHELTON (VISIT) (Hansard, 15 June 1965)

§ Mr. Thorneycroft (by Private Notice)
May I ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department a Question of which I have given him Private Notice, whether he is aware of the intended visit to this country of a Mr. Shelton, an American citizen, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan—[Interruption.]—with the declared purpose of entering into discussions on race problems here; and if he will extend no official facilities to Mr. Shelton by the grant of a visa or otherwise for such a visit.

§ The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Frank Soskice)
I have seen Press reports about this projected visit. If Mr. Robert Shelton, or any other foreigner identified as being engaged in the activities of the Ku Klux Klan, arrives here he will be refused leave to land; and any foreign visitor found to be engaged in such activities during his stay in this country will be required to leave.

§ Mr. Thorneycroft
I thank the Home Secretary for his very clear answer on this matter, which will give general satisfaction to the House, including the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton), who had a Question on this subject on the Order Paper. I am sure that this approach will find support among all people who want a sensible and humane approach to our racial problems.

§ Sir A. V. Harvey
On a point of order. When my right hon. Friend was asking his Private Notice Question I distinctly heard the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) say, "Like Mr. Peter Griffiths". [Interruption.] I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that my hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Peter Griffiths) should be protected from this type of aggressiveness.

§ Mr. Speaker
I did not hear what was said, but if the implication was that an hon. Member was engaged in these Ku Klux Klan type of practices, that expression should be withdrawn.

§ Mr. Michael Foot
I think that there has been some misapprehension, Mr. Speaker. I do not think that it was anything said by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) that caused trouble. I certainly referred to the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Peter Griffiths) in connection with this matter, because he is the major Member of the House who has conducted racialist propaganda.

Hon. Members
Withdraw.

§ Mr. Speaker
I thought that the hon. Member was trying to help me about the facts. That was my first impression. His further observations about the hon. Member should be withdrawn.

§ Mr. Thorpe
Further to that point of order—

§ Mr. Speaker
I want the withdrawal first.

§ Mr. Foot
I am not sure what you are asking me to withdraw, Mr. Speaker. I said, by way of an interruption, that the hon. Member for Smethwick has been engaged in racialist propaganda. Everybody in the country knows that. I was extremely grateful to hear from the Opposition Front Bench a denunciation of this kind of propaganda—we were all grateful—although it is a little late in the day.

§ Mr. Speaker
I do not fancy that accusations of racialist activities or propaganda assist the business of the House. I require a withdrawal.

§ Mr. Foot
It is quite impossible for me to withdraw—[HON. MEMBERS: "Name."] It is quite impossible for me to withdraw a charge of racialist propaganda against the hon. Member for Smethwick, since everybody knows that he does it. The same applies to the Leader of the Opposition, who has never repudiated the propaganda—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that such a charge, however odious, is perfectly proper for an hon. Member to make of another hon. Member. If I am asked to say that I do not believe that the hon. Member for Smethwick has engaged in racialist propaganda it is quite impossible for me to do so, because that would be a lie.

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member seems to be getting this a little wrong. If he wants to say that another Member has engaged in these—I forget his exact words—distasteful and wrong practices, there is a proper procedure in the House for doing it. What is wrong is to take the opportunity which he now seeks. I require him to withdraw what he said.

§ Mr. Sydney Silverman
On a point of order. Surely the question whether an hon. Member's actions or speeches in the country or outside do or do not amount to racialist propaganda is purely a question of political opinion, on which every hon. Member is entitled to express his views. It is very difficult for most of us to see what can possibly be out of order about that.

§ Mr. Speaker
This is the point about it: I do not want anybody to get enraged. There is a method to be followed 243 if a Member wishes to complain about another Member's conduct. [HON. MEMBERS: "He is not complaining."] He can table the appropriate Motion, and do so. What, in the interests of the House, I am concerned with is that we should not bandy such accusations about, because it does not help the proceedings of the House. I am not denying the hon. Member any right. I am only asking him to follow the normal practice in these matters.

§ Mr. Michael Foot
What I have said I believe to be in full accordance with Parliamentary precedent, Mr. Speaker. I am not prepared to withdraw anything that I have said.

Hon. Members
Name.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am sorry that the hon. Member should seek this course and challenge my Ruling. I desire only the good of the House. I hope that on that ground the hon. Member will reconsider what he has just said. I do not think that any useful purpose is served by not taking the directions of the Chair.

§ Mr. Paget
Is it not clear that there is a misunderstanding between us on this matter? The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) said that my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) had mentioned the name of the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Peter Griffiths). In those circumstances, since my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire had not mentioned the name of the hon. Member for Smethwick, but my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) had done so, it was in order for him to say, "No, I was the person who said that the hon. Member for Smethwick was engaged in racialist propaganda".
Was not that in order, with respect, Mr. Speaker? Was not that the occasion when my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale should have said that? If he had not, it would have left the mistaken impression that the remark was made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire. It is difficult to see what else my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale could have done. Now he is being asked to withdraw, in the sense of saying that he no longer adheres 244 to a statement which he believes—and which most of us believe—to be true.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. and learned Member for trying to help me. It is true that this was begun by the hon. and gallant Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) levelling an accusation against, I think, the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), as having pronounced something into the arena, as it were. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) then got up to say that his hon. Friend had not uttered the words, whatever they were, and proceeded, in my presence, to utter words which I thought should not properly be uttered in this context and in this place.
The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) takes the point and says that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale is being asked to withdraw words which he wishes to assert are true, or the like, and that that is an impossible position for him to be put in. With great respect to the hon. and learned Member, that is not the position. I was being very careful to say that if you want to say these things about another hon. Member you must adopt the proper procedure for doing so. What is wrong is to do it on this occasion. Withdrawal does not mean that you do not assert that the words are true, only that the occasion on which you uttered the words was not the right one.

Hon. Members
No.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I must hear what help I can get.

§ Sir A. V. Harvey
Further to my original point of order, may I apologise to the hon. Member for South Ayrshire? What I heard was an hon. Member sitting in the region of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth was referring to the Ku Klux Klan, say, "Like Peter Griffiths".

§ Mr. Speaker
It is extremely confusing to know if anyone said in that context these words. If I cannot get help about it I do not know.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
On a point of order. I have never heard of Mr. Peter Griffiths.

§ Mr. Grimond
On a point of order. I am not entering at all into discussion of the fact that you have asked the hon. Member to withdraw, Mr. Speaker. I think that it is important for the House to have this clear. If the words accusing another hon. Member of practising racial discrimination, whether true or not, are out of order, surely they are always out of order, and will be as much out of order in debate as they are in an interjection?
I am subject to your guidance but it is the common small change of politics to accuse one another of one thing or another. Though I do not support this accusation, we have heard the words and if they are out of order in an interjection are they perfectly in order in a debate?

§ Mr. Speaker
I hope that the right hon. Member will not make my task more difficult. I have to judge what I think are abusive words in a Parliamentary sense. I can imagine circumstances in which, perhaps, the accusation of racialist propaganda might not call for the intervention of the Chair. In this context I thought that it was abusive and I still think that it was.
On the other point which the right hon. Gentleman raised, if I may explain—if you wish to make an abusive accusation about the conduct of another hon. Member, you should argue the matter by tabling a substantive Motion to enable you to do it. In any other circumstances it would not be in order.

§ Mr. Sydney Silverman
On a point of order. Am I right in assuming, Mr. Speaker, that your main reason for asking my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) to withdraw the words is that you regard the words as an unjustified attack on the character or conduct of another hon. Member? If that is the reason, would my hon. Friend be in order in producing evidence to show that the attack was not unjustified at all?

§ Mr. Speaker
No. If I think the terms are abusive and, in that sense, unparliamentary—whether justified or no—that would be their state. That is the 246 point. It does not assist the progress of Parliament if we do these things. That is why it is in my interests in the Chair to ask that they be withdrawn.

§ Sir Alec Douglas-Home
I did not wish to intervene, because I had hoped that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) would help the House by withdrawing what he said. As we heard the words on this side of the House—the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale will no doubt correct me if I am wrong—when it was said that Mr. Shelton had been invited to this country, the hon. Member interjected to say, "At the invitation of Peter Griffiths." If those were the words he used, I hope that he will be able to withdraw them.

§ Mr. Speaker
That raises yet another matter relating to words which I did not hear and could not conceivably hear from here, and I do not know whether they are accepted or not. As I explained to the hon. Member, he is not required to deny his belief in the accusation he made, but merely to acknowledge the fact that this is not an apt opportunity to make it.

§ Mr. Michael Foot
First, I repudiate entirely the suggestion which was made by the Leader of the Opposition as to what I said. Secondly, I understand perfectly what you have said to me now, Mr. Speaker, that I am not called upon at all to repudiate the accusations which I have made, but that you have said that this is not the appropriate time to make them. I appreciate greatly what you have said, and, in that sense, I withdraw. I must make it absolutely clear that I do not withdraw what I said, because I believe it to be the absolute truth.

Hon. Members
Oh.

§ Mr. Speaker
To reassert on an equally inappropriate occasion the insult previously delivered does not help, but the House may take the view that, in the case of the hon. Member—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—that amounts to a withdrawal. I doubt whether the House would wish to spend more time upon this matter.

§ Mr. Peter Emery
On a point of order. During the Private Notice Question which was asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft), when my right hon. Friend 247 was at the Opposition Dispatch Box, I distinctly heard the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot)—because I wrote it down—say, "Ku Klux Klan, like Peter Griffiths." I would contend that, irrespective of anything which has happened since, that was a direct smear on one of my hon. Friends and ought to be withdrawn.

§ Mr. Speaker
I understood that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale is now disputing that he said that, so the facts are in dispute. I cannot decide, on a number of noises, what is right or wrong. I do not dispute that the hon. Gentleman firmly believes and is satisfied that he heard those words. I do not dispute that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, unless my recollection is wrong, denied that he used them. In those circumstances, there is no foundation on which I can act. Let us get on with business.

§ Mr. Emery
Further to that point of order. As I understand—and I want to get on with business as much as anyone else—the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale denied having said anything about an invitation from Peter Griffiths. However, he did not deny the words which I have drawn to your attention. May I, therefore, ask you whether at this moment the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale denies the allegation which I make?

§ Mr. Speaker
I think that this is only wasting more time. We had better get on with business.