The Conservative MP Esther McVey has been urged to “get a grip” after she posted a poem about the Holocaust to criticise government plans to introduce outdoor smoking bans.
McVey, the MP for Tatton and a former cabinet minister, posted on X the words of Martin Niemöller’s 1946 poem First They Came, about inaction from within Germany against the Nazis.
It includes the lines: “Then they came for the Jews. And I did not speak out.”
McVey ended her tweet: “Pertinent words re Starmer’s smoking ban.”
First they came for the Communists⁰And I did not speak out
— Esther McVey (@EstherMcVey1) August 29, 2024
Because I was not a communist
Then they came for the Jews⁰And I did not speak out⁰Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me⁰And there was no one left⁰To speak out for me
Pertinent words re Starmer’s smoking ban
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, responded on X: “No, I do not think the postwar 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. Get a grip.”
McVey’s tweet was condemned by the the Board of Deputies of British Jews as “repugnant”.
“The use of Martin Niemöller’s poem about the horrors of the Nazis to describe a potential smoking ban is an ill-considered and repugnant action,” it said.
“We would strongly encourage the MP for Tatton to delete her tweet and apologise for this breathtakingly thoughtless comparison.”
Rabbi David Mason posted on X: “Tasteless. Utterly tasteless. How can you not see that?”
McVey posted a statement later on Thursday night insisting she would not remove the original tweet.
She said: “Nobody is suggesting that banning smoking outside pubs can be equated with what happened to the Jews at the hands of the Nazis. It is ridiculous for anyone to even suggest that was what I was doing.
“It is called an analogy – those who restrict freedoms start with easy targets then expand their reach.
“I am pretty sure everyone understands the point I was making and knows that no offence was ever intended and that no equivalence was being suggested.”
She added: “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.”
