THE HOUSE OF Lords has passed an amendment to the UK Crime and Policing Bill proposed by former DUP leader Arlene Foster that would criminalise saying “Up the Ra”.

On Wednesday, the former DUP leader, who is a life peer in the House of Lords, proposed an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to remove the “emulation requirement” when it comes to the crime of “glorification of terrorism”.

The emulation requirement means that prosecutors must prove that the speaker accused of glorifying terrorism also intended to encourage others to copy those acts.

Speaking in the House of Lords, Foster said this sets a “very high bar to meet for prosecution”.

She said there has been “no prosecutions in Northern Ireland and very few in England and Wales, despite the growing glorification of terrorism and terrorists”.

She also claimed that parents at a St Patrick’s Day parade in Newry, Co Down “were buying balaclavas and scarves with IRA slogans on them for their young children”.

“People might say that I should not live in the past,” said Foster.

“But this is not about the past; this is about the future and our young people.

“We need to stop the harmful normalisation of terrorism, and this amendment would go some way towards doing that.”

The UUP’s Dennis Rogan supported the amendment and remarked: “Those who lived in Northern Ireland through the Troubles know that Sinn Féin/IRA was the most hideous terrorist group—reduced to ‘Ra’.”

He added that on St Patrick’s Day, he came across “five young people on the Tube dressed with tricolours and shouting ‘Up the Ra, up the Ra, up the Ra’, which only means support for the IRA”.

“I do not think those young people fully realise the hurt and offence that gives to the victims of Sinn Féin/IRA. I fully support this amendment.”

However, a fellow peer noted that the emulation requirement was “inserted very deliberately” and that removing it would “restrict the scope of legitimate comment and be a departure from the principle that we normally criminalise behaviour only when it is liable to cause harm to others”.

Another said they could not “see how it would work in practice”.

Claire Fox added: “I cannot see how it would deal with a Rangers-Celtic match, or with people singing ‘The Fields of Athenry’ versus those singing ‘The Sash’, those shouting ‘Up the Ra’ and those shouting ‘No surrender’.

“There are slogans on both sides, all of them associated with the previous struggle.”

She added: “Arresting them and carting them away just turns them into a new kind of martyr, in my mind, and we do not want to give anything to their martyr status.

“I can see the aim, but I do not think this is the method.”

However, the UUP’s Tom Elliot said the examples given by Fox “are not akin to what we are talking about here”.

“You cannot stop some of those chants and singing ‘The Fields of Athenry’ or ‘The Sash’ at a Rangers-Celtic match—and, by the way, that is not illegal.

“But there is a significant difference between singing that and going out to publicly antagonise people by shouting ‘Up the Ra’, ‘Up the UVF’ or support for other terrorist organisations. So I support the amendment.”

The amendment was agreed to and will now progress to report stage, which gives British MPs an opportunity in the House of Commons to consider further amendments.