Some 40 Conservative MPs are reportedly planning to refuse to take Black Lives Matter-inspired ‘unconscious bias training’, while reports claim that parliamentary staff have been encouraged to make confessionals about their “privilege”.
The rebels are said to come from the eurosceptic European Research Group (ERG) and the “Common Sense Group” of MPs who accuse the House of Commons authorities of pandering to a far-left agenda.
“I would really rather gouge my eyes out with a blunt stick than sit through that Marxist, snake oil crap,” said one, according to a Monday report in The Times.
Ben Bradley was the first Conservative MP to publicly break ranks, writing last week that he would refuse to do the ‘Value Everyone Training’, a voluntary course in exposing and addressing alleged ‘unconscious bias’, a fashionable turn of phrase that has taken root in mainstream politics following months of destructive protests and pressure from the far-left Black Lives Matter.
Mr Bradley is known for his outspoken views on progressive ideology, having previously challenged the existence of “white male privilege” and cancelled his BBC television licence after it promoted a podcast that was racist towards white women. He was quoted in The Times as saying that the course would perpetuate “the kind of nonsense language that we keep hearing around things like the Black Lives Matter agenda”.
He was joined by Tom Hunt MP, who said: “Whoever is pushing this forward now is trying to pander to the woke agenda — I won’t be. I don’t think the vast majority of my constituents would want me to waste two hours on a pointless unconscious bias session that will have no effectiveness whatsoever.”
“It would be far better to spend time helping constituents than be lectured by someone who’s being paid a lot of money to tell you you’re an awful human being,” said MP Alexander Stafford.
Meanwhile, The Telegraph reported on Sunday that white parliamentary staff are being encouraged to “acknowledge their privilege” and “internalised racism” on an internal online work message board which was set up following the Black Lives Matter protests.
One such message seen by the newspaper said that “as a white woman I acknowledge my privilege and continue to educate myself”.
“I am a white man and from that privileged position I now see that I can’t ever fully understand the relentless impact of racism,” another message read.
Another woman felt the need to confess: “I am a white, privately educated, middle-class female.”
Other critical race theory-inspired material was shared on the digital wall, including a “pyramid of white supremacy”, which included remarks that pointed to racism such as that “we all belong to the human race”.
“Lynching” and “genocide” were at the apex of the pyramid, with staying “apolitical” was at the bottom — echoing the BLM belief that “silence is violence” and equal to condoning racism.