Conservative MP Esther McVey has been branded “repugnant” for using a poem about the Holocaust to criticise the government’s proposals for tougher rules on outdoor smoking. The MP for Tatton shared a section of Martin Niemoller’s 1946 poem, “First They Came”, on social media, adding: “Pertinent words re Starmer’s smoking ban.”
The Board of Deputies of British Jews called on the former cabinet minister to apologise for the “breathtakingly thoughtless comparison”.
Ms McVey later insisted she was not equating banning smoking outside pubs with the Nazi persecution of the Jews and “no offence was ever intended”. She added that she would “not be bullied” into removing the post on X.
The poem, which is about the silence of some Germans in the face of Nazi crimes, includes the lines: “Then they came for the Jews. And I did not speak out. Because I was not a Jew. In response to Ms McVey’s post, 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.” Rabbi David Mason, executive director of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality, said the post was “utterly tasteless”.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting responded to her post: “No, I do not think the post-war confessional of Martin Niemöller 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.
Source: BBC
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