LAAS in The Times, the Daily Mail, Jewish News
LAAS expose "inflammatory" posts by BMA president in the Times
LAAS complain to BMA about their own president
The BMA are now investigating their own president after her social posts were captured by LAAS and they wrote a letter of complaint. The story was covered in The Times, the Daily Mail and Jewish News.
The Times said:
The British Medical Association is investigating claims that its president “repeatedly amplified” allegedly antisemitic posts on her social media account.
Mary McCarthy, a leading GP, has been accused of creating a “hostile environment” for Jewish doctors by using her account on X to share provocative posts focusing on the conflict in Gaza.
The campaign group Labour Against Antisemitism wrote to the BMA last week describing McCarthy’s online activity as “deeply concerning”. The doctors’ union said it has brought in external investigators.
The BMA said it had begun an investigation after a complaint was sent by Alex Hearn, a director of Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS).
A letter to the union on December 10 included several screenshots of messages that had been shared by McCarthy, a Shropshire GP, on her X account. One that she reposted described the conflict in Gaza as “a holocaust”.
The campaign group said she had shared “incendiary” posts by Sarah Wilkinson, a prominent pro-Palestinian activist. This allegedly included one post with a meme from the Quds News Network, a media group that critics say is linked to Hamas.
The letter further accused McCarthy of sharing disinformation by repeating claims that Israel had bombed an Orthodox church in Gaza which were later shown to be untrue.
Hearn wrote in the letter: “In her leadership role, Mary McCarthy has a duty to call the BMA membership to act responsibly instead of pouring fuel on the fire and contributing towards a hostile environment for her members who are Jewish.”
The BMA said: “We have received a complaint from LAAS and in accordance with BMA processes the concerns raised in their letter are being investigated by our external and independent investigators.
The TImes article here
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/bma-president-antisemitism-gaza-652z9znks
The Daily Mail said
Alex Hearn said: 'The function of the BMA is to represent British doctors, but instead your president appears more interested in a conflict thousands of miles away.'
He said Dr McCarthy 'quoted an anti-Semitic account' and also posted 'someone's description of the war as a 'Holocaust'.'
The LAAS complaint alleged that Dr McCarthy also retweeted 'incendiary' posts by Sarah Wilkinson, an activist for the hardline group Palestine Action.
Daily Mail article here
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14194071/British-Medical-Association-president-probed-complaints-reposted-messages-anti-Semitic-social-media-accounts.html
Jewish News said:
The BMA investigation, however, comes not as a result of complaints from doctors, but from Labour Against Anti-Semitism (LAAS), whose co-director, Alex Hearn, reported Dr McCarthy’s often controversial social media activism. He told the BMA: “The function of the BMA is to represent British doctors, but instead your president appears more interested in a conflict thousands of miles away.”
Dr Mary McCarthy. Pic X
She had, he said, “quoted an antisemitic account” and had also posted “someone’s description of the [Gaza] war as a ‘Holocaust’.”
You can read the Jewish News article here
https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/british-medical-association-investigates-its-own-president-over-antisemitic-reposts/