Esther McVey doubles down on Labour Holocaust comparison | LBC

Conservative MP Esther McVey has refused to delete a tweet branded "repugnant" by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, in which likens the Labour Government's smoking ban to the Holocaust.

Speaking with Nick Ferrari at Breakfast following widespread criticism of the post, Ms McVey insisted “I won’t be removing this tweet” before doubling down on her comments.

The MP for Tatton took to Twitter to share Martin Niemoller's 1946 poem "First They Came".

The poem includes the lines: "Then they came for the Jews. And I did not speak out."

However, the former minister ended her version with a twist, writing: "Pertinent words re Starmer's smoking ban."

In response, the Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned the Tory MP for her choice of words, and dubbed her social media stunt as "repugnant" and "breathtakingly thoughtless".

"It’s known as an analogy," the 'Minister for Common Sense' told Nick Ferrari.

"No offence was intended, but what I want people to wake up to - and I want people to take this very, very seriously - is this socialist government."

“This is a very very powerful parable, and if I can’t talk about a powerful parable about removing freedoms, I think we need to be very very careful about freedom of speech,” she told Nick.

“People need to start waking up,” she said, adding that Labour are “removing freedoms one by one”.

She also accused the government of blatant "cronyism” as part of the chat.

In a statement following the tweet, the Board of Deputies of British Jews said: "The use of Martin Niemoller's poem about the horrors of the Nazis to describe a potential smoking ban is an ill-considered and repugnant action.

"We would strongly encourage the MP for Tatton to delete her tweet and apologise for this breathtakingly thoughtless comparison."

Health Secretary Wes Streeting responded to Ms McVey with: "No, I do not think the postwar confessional of Martin Niemoller about the silent complicity of the German intelligentsia and clergy in the Nazi rise to power is pertinent to a Smoking Bill that was in your manifesto and ours to tackle one of the biggest killers."

He added: "Get a grip."

Rabbi David Mason, executive director of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality, said: "Tasteless. Utterly tasteless. How can you not see that?"

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LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK.

[dazzwsmith]

What about the tory anti-protest laws? Far worse than what shes babbling on about.

[pdempseyful]

There more and more I hear Tories call Keir Starmer socialist the more my suspicions are confirmed they have no idea what socialism means.

[BaalBandit]

Are her and her husband paying their own rent yet or is the tax payer still covering it?

[BaalBandit]

"Im not comparing it to the holocaust. I said it because its comparable" - ex minister of common sense....

[davejlboy]

The ex minister of common sense ladies and gentlemen..irony overload .

[Thorkil]

I take offence at this hypocrite - not only for using this poem - but she is from a party who openly talked about and promoted the idea that we should remove the UK from the ECHR - which is by definition the paramount organisation that protects our human rights

[franklingoodwin]

Anything Esther doesn't like is like the holocaust apparently. The analogy wasn't analogous. So she clearly doesn't know what the word means. Calling it Orwellian would be more appropriate. Ironically it doesn't take much common sense to be the minister for common sense.

[funkitup]

She should stop taking tips from the US Republican Party and learn the meaning of socialism.

[nelty]

A socialist government? I can assure you, no socialist thinks that🤣

[andrewharrison]

Remember when they were up in arms about Gary Lineker tweets, comparing the language around asylum seekers to 1933 Germany? Well we saw how that panned out after Southport - but she wants to compare smoking policy to the nhazi regime?

[whackeryounis]

It seems like she doesn’t know what socialism is

[SaulTPokit]

When did this Labour Govt convert to socialism?? 😂

[blobbyblabber]

It's almost as if she has absolutely no understanding of what socialism is and she thinks it's just a general pejorative for anything she doesn't like.

[JOverton]

The fact she can without irony refer to the government as socialist while comparing them to a poem whose first line refers to the government murdering socialists is gobsmacking. Stunning levels of thick.

[Khalkara]

Very noticable how Ferrari doesn't once push back on her calling it Labour "socialist". He doesn't care about calling her out on being disingenuous, no he just recognizes how much of a bad look this is for conservatives so he implores her to not make their people (conservatives) look bad.

[JBroMCMXCI]

This is why you don’t mix red wine and Xanax

[danrattigan]

Cannot believe a supposedly serious journalist like Nick Ferrari is normalising this. This is the kind of garbage you’d expect your weird auntie to repost on Facebook, yet he’s suggesting she has a point?

[AshenVictor]

It's not a poem about removing freedoms, it's a poem about removing *people*. It's a poem about who is an acceptable target that nobody stands up for based not on things they do but on things they believe and things they are.

It's very sad that Esther wasn't confronted with that.

[siskinedge]

This Smoking ban bill was originally a conservative bill that they couldn't pass due to people like Esther McVey who are transparent mouthpeices for their donors. As someone who's quit smoking multiple times, the only solution is to never start.

[hogwatch]

Didn’t the Conservatives want to ban smoking for anyone born after 2009?