Andrew Bridgen: Notes on an MP Under the Influence of Bad Actors

From The Times:

A Tory MP has claimed that global elites conspired to keep coronavirus secret for months, before exaggerating its severity to impose restrictions.

…In an interview with NHS 100k, an organisation set up to oppose vaccine mandates, [Andrew] Bridgen said: “I’ve spoken to people who’ve recently left security services around the world. And they’ve told me that they knew in September [2019] what was going to happen, some of them told me they knew in August. And they were also told not to take any vaccines or test.”

Andrew Bridgen has long enjoyed media prominence as an all-purpose rent-a-quote, despite his obvious buffoonery. In recent months, however, his influence on public life has taken a darker turn. Disgraced by a judge finding that he he had been dishonest during a legal dispute involving members of his family, and then suspended from Parliament after undertaking paid lobbying, Bridgen has now re-branded as a thorough-going Covid alarmist and conspiricist. In December, he called an adjournment debate in the House of Commons in which he promoted the work of Aseem Malhotra, and his social media output is now a sewer of disinformation, shared without discernment from obvious bad-faith fringe websites such as NewsPunch. Among the conspiracy crowd he is regarded as a heroic figure, with supporters such as Maajid Nawaz and GB News’ Calvin Robinson pushing a false narrative that he was suspended from Parliament for speaking out.

It it reasonable to suppose that Bridgen’s weblinks and talking-points are being handed to him by persons within the conspiracy movement. His claim to be in contact with “people who’ve recently left security services around the world” is beyond the bounds of credibility, but it is feasible that he has been introduced to individuals claiming to have such a background, which he has taken at face value. Whether his contacts are fantasists, crooks or foreign agents is anyone’s guess.

Some years ago the satirical television show Brass Eye showed how easy it is to suck MPs into hoaxes, and I’ve seen examples for myself. Bridgen’s judgement and decision-making would appear to be completely subordinated to the interests of bad actors who are unknown and in the shadows. This is not acceptable, and it seems to me that an intervention is overdue. At the very least, he should lose the whip.

Note

NHS 100k is a campaigning group created by a paramedic referred to in the media only as Lilith. According to its website (emphasis in original):

NHS100k believe in bodily autonomy and the right to give informed consent to any medical intervention. Evidence currently indicates that Covid-19 vaccines may reduce severe disease, and may reduce transmission. However, Covid-19 vaccines do not prevent infection, severe disease, or transmission.

This seems to be rather more nuanced than Bridgen’s Covid conspiricism. However, NHS100k billed the interview as being in the wake of Bridgen’s “historic speech in parliament calling for the immediate suspension of the cv !9 [sic] injection”, and according to The Times,

His interviewer [Matt Taylor, unnamed in the report] thanked him for confirming what he and his community had long suspected, but had been accused of being “crazy tin foil hat people” for believing.