Reform MPs have been banned from asking questions about the teenager accused of the Southport massacre in Parliament, Nigel Farage has revealed, amid concerns about the public being kept in the dark. The Telegraph has the story.
Mr. Farage has accused Sir Keir Starmer of using fear “to shut down public debate that he considers inconvenient”, after Axel Rudakubana was charged with a terror offence.
Writing for the Telegraph, the Reform U.K. leader describes how MPs were silenced when they wanted to raise the matter in the Commons, including “panicked emails” and phone calls telling them not to ask questions about the case.
He said: “It is impossible to infer anything other than that the apparatus of state are being used to manage this situation.”
The announcement that Mr Rudakubana, 18, was being charged with possessing a military study of an Al-Qaeda training manual and producing the poison ricin has prompted a debate about the public’s right to know following the killing of three young girls at a dance class in July. …
Mr. Farage writes in the Telegraph: “The day after the three Southport killings, I could see that certain key facts about this atrocity had fallen into a vacuum. This had led to unhelpful online speculation. It struck me as vital for the public to know more…
“I understand the importance of not prejudicing a future trial, but in the current climate there appears to be no room to separate the ongoing legal process from the questions that I posed over the summer. This is deeply troubling.”
Mr. Farage says he submitted a written question to Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, asking if the accused had ever been referred to the counter-terrorism Prevent initiative, but was told by the Commons authorities that he could not ask about the matter because of the ongoing court case.
After the new charges were brought against the accused, police and prosecutors made clear the stabbings are not being treated as an act of terrorism.
Sir Keir, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, has not revealed when he and other Ministers first knew of the discovery of terror material and ricin said to have been in Mr. Rudakubana’s possession.
Mr. Farage said that on Wednesday his Reform U.K. colleague Richard Tice was selected to ask a question of Sir Keir at Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons.
He writes: “That morning, he received three panicked emails from the Commons authorities asking what the content of his question might be. Then, an hour before PMQs began, he received a telephone call in which he was told not to ask anything about the man accused of the Southport attacks. This point was reinforced strenuously by the Speaker in the Commons just before PMQs began. Parliamentary Privilege was effectively withdrawn.
“For now, therefore, it seems that nobody is allowed to ask in the proper forum when the Government first knew that the accused was to face the ricin and terror material charges.
“Likewise, nobody can know whether this man was known to the authorities in any way. Do we really want to live in a society where such crucial information is kept from the public? Who decided these details should remain secret?
“I believe this apparent suppression damages democracy. It certainly shreds public trust, leading me to ask myself: what is the point of being a public representative if even we are not allowed to ask what would previously have been considered reasonable questions? It is impossible to infer anything other than that the apparatus of state are being used to manage this situation.”
The Government’s terrorism tsar, Jonathan Hall KC, has said that “more information could have been put out safely without comprising potential criminal proceedings”.
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