Andrew Bridgen: should the anti-vax MP be silenced?

The Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen was “never the most glittering star in the political firmament”, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. He was known largely for his blunders: posting a “raunchy video” in a ministerial WhatsApp group; being suspended for breaching lobbying rules.

But in recent months, the MP for North West Leicestershire’s behaviour has taken a more sinister turn: he has been spouting anti-vax rhetoric on Twitter, and making bizarre claims about a global conspiracy to cover up the truth about Covid.

Last week, Bridgen’s colleagues’ patience finally snapped, after he tweeted that the mRNA vaccines that saved millions of lives constituted part of “the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust”. He was condemned by all sides, and the Tories suspended him from the parliamentary party.

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Bridgen has form when it comes to deranged ravings, said Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times. Last spring, for instance, a judge branded him a liar, as the High Court ruled against him in a bitter, decade-long legal battle with his own family’s potato business – a case which he then claimed to have won.

The sad irony is that Bridgen’s brand of inflammatory rhetoric doesn’t only hinder life-saving immunisation campaigns, said Michael Head on The Conversation. It also makes it harder to discuss genuine “vaccine injuries” – such as the 50 officially documented deaths in England, and one in Wales, caused by Covid vaccines. This is an issue that’s difficult to scrutinise properly, when anti-vaxxers “persistently muddy the waters with misinformation and abuse”.

For all that Bridgen’s views are “inflammatory” and “misguided”, they are plainly lawful, said Molly Kingsley in The Critic. Punishing an MP for expressing “contrarian” views erodes our democratic system and promotes a “hegemony” of state-approved thought that’s only a “few short steps from authoritarianism”.

On the contrary, said Henry Hill on CapX. Political parties must be free to choose who they want as members, and to specify which beliefs they won’t tolerate. This isn’t about freedom of speech: it’s about “freedom of association”. Or, in Andrew Bridgen’s case, “disassociation”.