Esther McVey slams ‘politically correct bullying’ following ridicule over ‘embarrassing’ smoking ban analogy

Esther McVey, the Tory MP for Tatton who was once the ‘minister for common sense’, has had another tweet of hers ridiculed and criticised online this week, after she used a poem about the Holocaust to take aim at a potential new smoking ban under Keir Starmer’s government.

The Conservative politician, who last year slammed protest action by Just Stop Oil by incorrectly describing a painting targeted by the campaign group, quoted parts of German pastor Martin Niemöller’s post-war confessional “First They Came” and claimed it was “pertinent” - in other words, ‘relevant’ - amid Starmer considering extending the indoor smoking ban to cover certain outdoor areas such as pub gardens and hospitals.

Right-wingers have since criticised the proposals, with Nigel Farage going as far as to warn he would “not go to the pub ever again” if a new ban is introduced – a threat which actually ended up generating support for the plans, as people imagined a Farage-free experience at their local.

McVey wrote on Thursday evening: “First they came for the Communists / And I did not speak out / Because I was not a communist / Then they came for the Jews / And I did not speak out / Because I was not a Jew / Then they came for me / And there was no one left / To speak out for me.

“Pertinent words re Starmer’s smoking ban.”

McVey’s comments soon received widespread condemnation from other social media users, with the Board of Deputies of British Jews issuing a statement describing the post as 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,” it said.

And they weren't the only ones to call out McVey for her comments:

Jewish authors and commentators also shared their thoughts on the comparison:

Some joked they wouldn't be all that fussed if the mysterious "they" came for McVey herself:

And then there were those who pointed out that the current leader of her party - Rishi Sunak - also wanted to extend the smoking ban when he was prime minister:

Yet despite the sheer scale of the criticism McVey was facing for the comparison, the Tory MP doubled down in a statement posted to Twitter just a few hours later, claiming it is “ridiculous” for people to suggest she was equating a possible smoking ban with the Nazi’s mass murder of Jewish people.

She wrote: “It’s called an analogy – those who restrict freedoms start with easy targets then expand their reach. I’m pretty sure everyone understands the point I was making and knows that no offence was ever intended and that no equivalence was being suggested.

“I will not be bullied into removing a tweet by people who are deliberately twisting the meaning of my words and finding offence when they know none was intended. We already have too much of that politically correct bullying designed to silence any free speech they don’t like.

“If they think I can be bullied in that way then they have picked the wrong target. Someone has to make a stand against the metropolitan politically correct bullies.”

This only attracted further ridicule and criticism, with some pointing out she was happy to brand Labour’s administration a “new socialist government” in her follow-up statement, but omit lines about socialists and trade unionists in her quoting of the original poem:

Embarrassing.

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