In Defence of Andrew Bridgen

I am the founder of the only Jewish group within the freedom movement here in the U.K., called Jews for Justice.

I started the group in November 2021, at a time of increasing prejudice against unvaccinated people. Other members of the freedom movement were already making a comparison between discrimination against the unvaccinated and the treatment of Jews in Germany in the 1930s. But they were being shouted down by prominent Jewish public figures who were effectively ‘weaponising’ anti-semitism and the Holocaust in order to silence any comparison with Nazi Germany. It occurred to me that if I got together a group of Jews, the majority of whom had a direct personal connection with the Holocaust, we could make the comparison with Nazi Germany without being shamed and silenced. Yes, Jewish gatekeepers for the regime could argue with us, but then we would be in a debate, and all that we want is to be able to debate these issues in public. So Jews for Justice was born.

In January 2022 I wrote a letter on behalf of Jews for Justice to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had stated publicly that it was immoral not to get vaccinated against COVID-19. In the letter I listed several points of comparison between recent events and the history of Germany in the 1930s, including how the confinement of Jews within ghettos and their ‘evacuation’ to concentration camps had been justified by the Nazi regime on grounds of ‘public health’, specifically the need to combat an infectious disease (in this case typhus) – exactly the same justification as was currently being used to restrict the civil liberties of those who chose not to be vaccinated. I emphasised to the Archbishop that I was not seeking to make any comparison with the Holocaust itself, only with the events that led up to the Holocaust. I told the Archbishop that Jews for Justice saw it as our role to warn the public at large how history is in danger of repeating itself. The letter went ‘viral’ on social media.

In his article defending Andrew Bridgen against allegations of anti-semitism, Will Jones refers to the Holocaust survivor Vera Sharav, who has been a long-term campaigner for human rights and has spent the past three years warning of the lessons we should be learning from the Holocaust. In the short video of Sharav that Will added at the bottom of his article, she makes similar points to the ones I made in my letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. But she has gone further.

This summer marked the 75th anniversary of the publication of the Nuremberg Code which, following the trial of Nazi doctors at Nuremberg in 1946-7, had established the inviolable principle of informed consent to all medical experiments. There was no official commemoration of this anniversary, for reasons that can easily be guessed at. But there was an unofficial commemoration in Nuremberg, featuring a speech by Sharav. Despite the existence of a German law against ‘relativising the Holocaust’, in other words prohibiting the comparison of the Holocaust to any other event, past or present, Sharav did not hold back. “The purpose of Holocaust memorials,” she said, “is to warn and inform future generations about how an enlightened, civilised society can be transformed into a genocidal universe, ruled by absolute moral depravity. If we are to avert another Holocaust, we must identify ominous current parallels before they poison the fabric of society. … Those who declare that Holocaust analogies are ‘off-limits’ are betraying the victims of the Holocaust by denying the relevance of the Holocaust.”

As a result of this speech, Sharav is being investigated by the Bavarian police for the crime of ‘Holocaust denial’. That’s right, a Holocaust survivor, who actually began her speech by describing her own experience of the Holocaust, is being investigated by the authorities in Bavaria – the heartland of Nazism – for ‘denying the Holocaust’. You couldn’t make it up.

There are Holocaust denial laws in many European countries, including some in which the Holocaust did not take place. There are not yet any such laws here in the U.K. But there is of course legislation against hate speech, and we are all well aware of current moves by the Government to extend such legislation further. Personally, I am concerned that the attack on Andrew Bridgen is part of an attempt by the Government to introduce de facto Holocaust denial legislation in the U.K. Anyone who dares to ‘relativise the Holocaust’ is already demonised, and in some cases people are already being prosecuted under existing hate-speech legislation.

It is patently ludicrous to accuse Bridgen of anti-semitism, as Matt Hancock did in Parliament. But the accusation was not accidental. It is part of a concerted campaign to ‘weaponise’ anti-semitism, to use the accusation of anti-semitism as a cudgel with which to beat anyone who speaks out against the Covid regime. Jews for Justice as a group is committed to shining a light upon the malicious practice of weaponising anti-semitism in order to silence any criticism of restrictions on civil liberties and of the vaccination programme.

I would strongly defend Bridgen’s position. He did not ‘relativise the Holocaust’. He did not say that the vaccine programme should be compared to the Holocaust. He said that it was the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust. Personally I am not convinced that there exists sufficient evidence to justify this statement. Not yet, anyway. But speaking as a Jew, and as the founder of a Jewish campaign group, I have no problem with his having made it.

In addition to founding Jews For Justice, Andrew Barr is the author of Wine Snobbery, Pinot Noir and Drink: An informal social history.

Jews For Justice doesn’t have a webpage, but it does have a Telegram group. If anyone is interested in joining, they should email Andrew at [email protected].

Stop Press: Andrew Bridgen has responded to his accusers. Read his statement in full here and watch it here.