![]() Date: 2024-08-16 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00017270 | |||||||||
Country: UK | |||||||||
Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess | |||||||||
Senior doctor threatens to sue Rees-Mogg after anti-vaxxer remarks ... David Nicholl accuses Commons leader of abusing parliamentary privilege
Rees-Mogg accuses doctor of 'fearmongering' about potential no-deal deaths – video
A senior doctor who helped draw up government medical plans for a no-deal Brexit has threatened to sue Jacob Rees-Mogg after the Commons leader compared him to the disgraced anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield.
Rees-Mogg told MPs that in warning about the possible effects of a no-deal Brexit on medical supplies, David Nicholl was being as irresponsible as Wakefield, who was struck off the medical register in 2010 after suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
Nicholl, a consultant neurologist who drew up a risk register of epilepsy and neurology drugs for the government’s Operation Yellowhammer no-deal plans, said Rees-Mogg had abused parliamentary privilege, which means MPs cannot be sued over comments made in the Commons.
Advertisement
“I will sue him if he repeats what he said outside parliament,” Nicholl said. “This is nothing really to do with Brexit, this is about bulling up any experts and bullying of whistleblowers.”
Rees-Mogg’s comments, made as he addressed the Commons on Wednesday during his duties as the leader of the house, provoked gasps from the opposition benches and were condemned by the chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) and several MPs.
The pair first clashed on Monday on LBC radio, when Nicholl challenged Rees-Mogg to say how many people he would accept could die because of a lack of access to drugs and radioactive isotopes.
Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate - sent direct to you
Read more
Rees-Mogg called Nicholl “deeply irresponsible” and said his comments were “typical of remainer campaigners”.
In the Commons on Thursday, Labour’s shadow leader of the Commons, Valerie Vaz, raised Rees-Mogg’s comments, saying: “I think the leader of the house owes an apology to Dr David Nicholl.”
Rees-Mogg said no-deal preparations were in place, and added: “But yes, a lot of remainers wish to make our skin crawl. And I’m afraid it seems to me that Dr David Nicholl is as irresponsible as Dr Wakefield.”
He continued: “What he had to say – I will repeat it – is as irresponsible as Dr Wakefield, in threatening that people will die because we leave the European Union. What level of irresponsibility was that?”
![]() |