The Conservative backbencher Andrew Bridgen was never the most glittering star in the political firmament. You might recall him from such hits as wrongly suggesting that any English person could ask for an Irish passport post-Brexit, or posting a raunchy video in a ministerial WhatsApp group.
More recently you might recall him being suspended from parliament for five days for breaching lobbying rules. But what ultimately cost him the Conservative whip was something of a different order entirely. Bridgen has recently taken to spouting anti-vaxxer messages on Twitter, and making bizarre claims about a global conspiracy to cover up the truth about Covid. When he posted on Twitter this Wednesday that the mRNA vaccines that have saved millions from the virus were part of “the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust”, the chief whip’s patience finally snapped. The Conservative party can’t physically stop Bridgen saying whatever he likes, but it can remove the authority that comes from saying it as a Conservative MP: it can, in effect, remove the soapbox beneath his feet.
