by Will Jones, Daily Sceptic:
MP Andrew Bridgen has had the Conservative whip removed – meaning he is suspended from sitting as a Conservative MP and must sit without party affiliation – pending a “formal investigation” after causing “great offence” with remarks saying the Covid vaccines are “causing serious harms” and the vaccination campaign was “the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust”.
According to Sky News, Tory Chief Whip Simon Hart said:
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Andrew Bridgen has crossed a line, causing great offence in the process. As a nation we should be very proud of what has been achieved through the vaccine programme. The vaccine is the best defence against Covid that we have. Misinformation about the vaccine causes harm and costs lives. I am therefore removing the whip from Andrew Bridgen with immediate effect, pending a formal investigation.
His ‘offensive’ comment came in a tweet (now deleted) on Wednesday morning linking to a write-up by Israeli academic Dr. Josh Guetzkow of the recently released CDC adverse event analysis, where Bridgen approvingly quotes an unnamed “consultant cardiologist” who he said had told him: “This is the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust.”
Mr. Bridgen, who has a science background, has become Parliament’s most vocal critic of the Covid vaccines. He thus made himself a big target for the pro-vaccine zealots who will have been looking for an excuse to punish and cancel him, and who have predictably leapt on the first ‘offensive’ thing they could find.
Dr. Guetzkow, the academic whose article Mr. Bridgen linked to in the tweet and who is Jewish and lives in Israel, defended Mr. Bridgen from allegations of anti-Semitism. He told the Daily Sceptic that “there is nothing at all anti-Semitic about his statement” and that “the hollow accusations against him only distract from genuine examples of anti-Semitism”. He said:
As a Jew living in Israel, I’m surprised by the accusations against Bridgen, because there is nothing at all anti-Semitic about his statement. This is a tempest in a teapot. The hollow accusations against him only distract from genuine examples of anti-Semitism and ultimately hinder attempts to draw attention to them, much like the boy who cried wolf.
John Mann, the Government’s independent anti-Semitism adviser, went straight to full-on cancel mode, saying: “There is no possibility that Bridgen can be allowed to stand at the next election. He cannot claim that he didn’t realise the level of offence that his remarks cause.”
Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: “This comment is highly irresponsible, wholly inappropriate and an elected politician should know better.”
Matt Hancock, the disgraced lockdown Health Secretary, hit out at Mr. Bridgen’s “disgusting, antisemitic, anti-vax conspiracy theories” at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. He said the comments were “deeply offensive” and “have no place in this House or in our wider society”.
