Top Tory Ben Houchen launched into a furious tirade against pro-Palestine protesters on Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC politics show this morning, branding them “useful idiots”. The Tees Valley mayor, who is now one of the most powerful Conservatives in the country, condemned the protesters who gave interviews to the morning show for spreading misinformation that fuelled the terrorist attack in Manchester earlier this week.
Mr Houchen blasted: “I think some of the examples you just gave there are an example of the useful idiots we’ve seen who are supporting hateful marches, where they are supporting Hamas, where they are supporting Palestinian Action. We’ve seen, as you said, more than 500 arrests, so it’s not peaceful in any way, shape or form. And they’re being used by these organisations as useful idiots to continue. There is a lot going on behind the scenes here, where there are organisations trying to divide our communities across this country.”
He also accused Labour ministers of “arse-covering”, after years of taking part in pro-Palestine marches that have spewed hatred at Jews.
He accused Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood of delivering “an absolute masterclass from the Home Secretary in arse-covering the Labour government, who have sided with these types of organisations”.
He added: “We knew this was going to happen. We knew an attack was going to happen somewhere in this country, because of the way this government has allowed these hateful marches to continue.”
Pressed by Ms Kuenssberg on whether he was really accusing thousands of pro-Palestine protesters of being “useful idiots” for Hamas and other terrorists, Mr Houchen stood by his claim.
Doubling down he insisted: “If we use the example from one of the Vox pops, the people who started this problem were Hamas on October 7 – it wasn’t the Israelis – so even that is part of the misinformation that is seeping into our consciousness, it’s seeping into the wider debate, and that allows and then facilitates and causes the attacks that happened in the last couple of days.”
Prior to his remarks Ms Kuenssberg showed a selection of Vox pops from Mancunian protesters out on the streets yesterday, with one claiming “Israel are the ones that have started all of this and are continuing it.”
Another said: “I’m from Manchester, I was really upset about what happened. But it’s nothing we can do, and we don’t agree with terrorism, we don’t agree with anything like that.”
A third added: “The implication behind their argument is that these are hate marches, they are not. As a Jewish person I have received nothing but love and respect on these marches, and I’ve been attending every week for two years.”