Anti-Semitic, anti-vax conspiracy theorist?
The curious case of Andrew Bridgen
On May 7th 2023, MP Andrew Bridgen took part in a televised debate with journalist Fraser Myers of the left wing media outlet Spiked. Under discussion were Bridgen's views on the covid injections. The debate had been provoked by an unfavourable article written by Myers about Bridgen. The journalist used the opportunity to utter the phrase anti-vax conspiracy theorist (or theories) on multiple occasions.
Bridgen's outlook places him in the camp of those who consider the injections to be dangerous and part of a sinister and ongoing agenda.
As excess deaths continue to arise around the world, the ranks of those who question the internationally state mandated and coerced injections, continue to grow. Minimal attention or concern is being displayed towards the alarming mortality trend by media organisations and governments who advocated shutting down nations when highlighting lower excess death figures in 2020. This being the case, one might expect the dissident cause to welcome all voices of influence. Yet Bridgen, who has been ejected from the Conservative Party, finds himself in the invidious position of a defector, rejected by one side and treated with suspicion by another.
Bridgen can lay claim to speak with greater authority than many of his fellow MPs on medical matters as he is scientifically trained. His degree in biological sciences from Nottingham University included the study of biochemistry, genetics and behaviour, and virology. Questions arise as to why this scientific training was not in evidence when he voted for an unscientific lockdown and for mandated injections with no long term safety data, for care home workers.
When Bridgen raised concerns about the injections in the House of Commons on November 13th, 2022 it came ten days after it was reported that he was facing suspension for breaching lobbying rules "on multiple occasions and in multiple ways." He again addressed the subject of injections in the House of Commons on December 13th, 2022, and a week later it was reported that he had failed to overturn the recommended suspension. The investigation into Bridgen's finances had first been reported in Feb 2022, so his contribution to the vaccine debate was poorly timed as it coincided with the announcement of the verdict and presented an opportunity for the media to discredit him.
Bridgen's five day suspension from the House of Commons was confirmed on January 9th, 2023, two days before Bridgen invoked the Holocaust in a tweet about the covid injections that read, “As one consultant cardiologist said to me this is the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust.” Despite the cardiologist in question apparently being Jewish and the opinion stating a time reference rather than making a comparison, the tweet provided an entirely foreseeable opportunity for a media incapable of nuance to label Bridgen as an anti-Semite. Bridgen has since pointed out that his tweets are vetted by Conservative Party staff. Did they also fail to recognise the potential reaction to the tweet for which Bridgen was expelled from the Party?
Conservative spokesperson Robert Ashman told Leicestershire Live on 10th May 2023: “It is deeply regrettable that Mr Bridgen has attempted to apportion blame for his social media content on an employee rather than take responsibility himself for his blue tick social media accounts.”
“Mr Bridgen claims that his social media posts are moderated by staff members. It is our understanding that moderation does not take place however his tweets are checked for regular spelling and grammar errors.” On the subject of whether the Conservative Party moderated Bridgen's tweets, both he and Ashman cannot be right.
Bridgen explains his parliamentary suspension to James Delingpole in an interview of 21st December 2022. He recounts that a Ghanaian firm operating in his constituency had paid for him to visit Ghana to verify that they were an existent company. He describes the trip itself as “no picnic.” Subsequently, he sent six to eight emails to ministerial colleagues to confirm the company's legitimacy. He had verbally informed his colleagues that the company had funded the trip but he neglected to repeat that information in each email. For this he was suspended from Parliament for two days. In contrast he claims a colleague who had failed to declare £150,000 was able to atone for their misdemeanour with a letter of apology. When informed that the commissioner for standards adjudicating his case was soliciting a peerage from the Labour Party, he wrote privately to the commissioner to enquire if this was true. For this letter he was suspended for another three days.
In an open letter to Bridgen and in related articles, researcher Miriam Finch (miriaf.co.uk), details that the MP received an interest free loan of £25,000 from multi-millionaire Jeremy Hosking in October 2022. Hosking has also donated £5million to the Reclaim Party which Bridgen has recently joined, despite its apparent lack of political activity when compared with the Freedom Alliance and the Heritage Party, both of which receive much less media attention. Finch writes that the Freedom Alliance has put forward over 200 candidates in local elections since 2021 and that according to its website the Heritage Party has fielded over 75 this year alone. This contrasts with Reclaim's showing of three political candidates, all in 2021, when Laurence Fox ran in the London Mayoral election, Martin Daubney stood as a parliamentary candidate in the North Shropshire by-election, and Leo Kearse in the Scottish by-election, with the first two receiving so few votes that they lost their deposits. Why did Bridgen not stand as an independent?
Bridgen has recently launched a public campaign to raise £250,000 to fund a defamation case against Matt Hancock who on January 11th 2023 described him on twitter as promulgating “disgusting and dangerous antisemitic, anti-vax, anti-scientific conspiracy theories.” By bringing this case, Bridgen superficially fulfils a desire in some quarters to attack the former Health Secretary, but given the legal protection for freedom of speech it seems unlikely to succeed. It is also possible that in the event of failure, the money could end up being paid to Hancock in damages. Bridgen claims that if successful he will use the money to help the vaccine injured but then why not raise money directly for them? Why solicit money from the public when connected to a donor who has provided £5million to his political party?
On the subject of the injections, Bridgen speaks earnestly but too late for many people who have already taken as many as they are going to, or for those who are now too entrenched in their opinions to listen to him. For those who do listen to Bridgen, his opinions are often contradictory.
On December 21st 2022, he told journalist James Delingpole that “We shouldn't have had any lockdowns, they were unnecessary.”
He states that he has seen “compelling evidence ...that covid 19 was in Europe and in this country probably from August 2019...So it was rampant around Europe in late summer '19 before we had the lockdowns. It's clear that the hospitals weren't overloaded and there weren't people dying in the streets -so undoubtedly the powers that be must have known that, so what the hell's going on and why did we have to have lockdowns- which has cost economically, damaged us emotionally and psychologically, and damaged our population, made us far less efficient, and damaged our children immensely?”
In a more recent interview with Jeffrey Peel of New Era on April 6th, 2023, he repeats that he has “proof” that covid-19 was circulating in the UK in 2019, but he then illogically and confusingly asserts that “we were completely right to do the first lockdown, because no-one knew what was going on and everybody else was doing it, and I think it was difficult for government not to be in lockstep and not initially have that lockdown.”
The use of the word lockstep is interesting in that it calls to mind the lockstep chapter of a 2010 Rockefeller Foundation document, "Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development" which describes the governance of a future pandemic with eerie similarities to events since March 2020.
Bridgen speaks of ‘catching covid’ in March 2020, describing it as being the “worst thing I have ever had,” and the only illness for which he has ever missed a day of work. He talks of “gain of function research funded probably by Mr.Fauci, being done at Wuhan,” of the 'virus' being “released deliberately or by accident,” and criticises the World Health Organisation for saying in early 2020 that “it was only going from animals to people and couldn't transfer from people to people.” Strangely then, he also talks of “the only pandemic as being a pandemic of fear.”
The North West Leicestershire MP recognises that he was inevitably going to be removed from the Conservative Party for his criticisms. Yet he simultaneously believes that his influence had the effect of preventing the same government from going ahead with a roll out of covid injections for children and instead the shots being limited to those over seventy-five and the immunosuppressed.
He proudly tells Peel that he voted against mandated injections for NHS workers because it was against the Nuremberg Code, although he had previously voted for an identical mandate for care home workers, an act which he described to Delingpole as “criminal,” and for which he apologised.
There are 650 MPs at Westminster. Although Christopher Chope has championed the cause of the vaccine injured, Bridgen is the only one to question and criticise the vaccine so openly as to draw widespread media attention and opprobrium. In addressing this issue, Bridgen provides the sense that concerns are being voiced. Within the political framework something is being seen to be done. Bridgen also provides an opportunity for others to dismiss those concerns, providing a kind of pinata for proponents of the official narrative. Without him the narrow parameters of Parliamentary discussion would be more clearly apparent.