Jim Shannon

First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) for her determination, her courage and her leadership and for standing strong against the threats that have been made—physical threats, verbal threats and all sorts of threats—to her and her family. We in this House should stand strong with her. In the previous statement, the Home Secretary referred to security for individuals. My hon. Friend is one Member of this House who deserves that, and everyone in this House should back her as she makes her stand. My constituents are asking me this question: why did the Secretary of State take the extraordinary step of intervening before the Court of Appeal had delivered its scheduled legal ruling today? In pre-empting the highest courts in the land, what message does this catastrophic surrender send to extremist factions active across the entire United Kingdom? If they descend upon a community in great numbers, refuse to obey the law and threaten violence, the Government will grant them their aims. If I had blocked Frances Street in Newtownards along with my constituents, we would have been in Bangor custody within 30 minutes. Will the Secretary of State admit that this decision sets a devastating national precedent? This is a policy of short-sighted appeasement that buys peace for today at the expense of our future. Why should law-abiding citizens continue to trust the democratic process when the Government signal to extremists of every stripe that street-level intimidation trumps the rule of law and that the British ideology of upholding law and justice as a foundation has now crumbled?