Member

Why was Victoria Tower Gardens chosen? Because it was free. It is not free. It is a taxpayers’ burden. The only case for it, made by the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, at the planning inquiry, was that visitors would emerge to a view of the Palace of Westminster and think that it could not happen here. The exhibition, however, as far as we know, is not about the death camps, but more about refugees and Britain, and their sad stories, such as the parents of the kinder in the Kindertransport being refused entry and the barring of what might have been a refuge in Palestine. Those decisions took place right here in Whitehall, and every week now the anti-Jewish marches proceed unhindered close to Westminster. Our students are persecuted on campus without redress from Parliament. The siting argument based on democracy is false, to put it mildly. It is virtue signalling at others’ expense. It was not in the published Labour manifesto of 2024, on which the population voted, but in the King’s Speech. I have gone through the online manifesto repeatedly and not found it.