Tory MP Bob Stewart charged with racially abusing activist
Conservative MP Bob Stewart has been charged with racially abusing a man he allegedly told to “go back to Bahrain”.
The Metropolitan Police launched an investigation after a complaint was made by activist Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, who has said he is living in exile after being tortured in the Gulf state.
The MP for Beckenham in south-east London is alleged to have told Mr Alwadaei during an angry confrontation on December 14 to “get stuffed” and that he is “taking money off my country”.
The Met said on Monday that the 73-year-old politician has been charged with a racially aggravated public order offence over the incident outside the Foreign Office’s Lancaster House.
He will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on July 5.
The MP is also charged with an alternative count of using threatening or abusive words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.
Discretion
This is to allow the court discretion on the racial element of the allegation and does not relate to a separate incident, the Met said.
It is understood that Stewart will keep the Tory whip following the authorisation of the charges.
Stewart, a former British Army officer, has represented Beckenham since 2010 and is currently the chairman of the all-parliamentary group on Bahrain.
Mr Alwadaei, 36, who said he was tortured after taking part in anti-government protests in the country, is the director of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy.
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Keep the whip, given the nature of their front bench no surprises there…
As an ex-army Colonel he should have known better, a Royal Naval officer would not have made such a faux pas after 50 years of strong diplomatic, military and trade relations between Britain and Bahrain. Truly shocking, he should be ashamed of himself but that is one emotion lacking on the blue benches…
Yes, granted; but surely charges of ‘racially aggravated offence’ and ‘threatening behaviour’ are way over the top? Yet again the British taxpayer has to pick up the tab for someone’s hurt feelings. Whatever happened to the robust verbal rough-and-tumble of politics? Name-calling is not very seemly, but on that score Mr Alwadaei’s very pointed jibe about Col. Bob’s alleged Bahrain junkets had already struck home. After that very palpable hit, a bigger man would have left it at that, imho. Only saying.
My sister is retired lawyer but all through her career she never gave me one free bit of legal advice and I certainly was not going to pay her for it…
So what happened to the rough and tumble of politics…
Jo Cox was murdered…
By a man who was radicalised by the far right but he was justified by a vile gobsh*te millionaire on your tv most evenings…The dinner bell has gone, cook is not to be kept waiting (to be continued)
I take your point, insofar as ‘rough and tumble’ signifies both ‘fighting between children that is not serious’ and ‘a busy activity that people do in a very forceful way’. [Cambridge Dictionary]. Everything human can be taken too far, of course. Hence Jo Cox and the Nazi Holocaust. So we become afraid of our own shadow. Can we ever trust that there are those who are pure in heart, ever again? I hope so, otherwise – with bitter irony – Evil has comprehensively routed us, won the day and dominates the field of human endeavour. But the sensitivities of this… Read more »
Rebellion against extinction sounds like a good idea to me, I hope you make it aboard the Ark. I don’t fancy the ‘state of nature’ one bit… heddwch brawd…
‘Rebellion against extinction’ – When you put it that way, who could possibly object? But of course the slogan begs the question and many have intelligent doubts whether the Biblical lifeboat will be required. Apres vous à bord l’Arche, M’sieur.
Off you go again…we’re doomed Capt Mainwaring, doomed!…
And there’s me thinking we were having an amicable exchange of views. Now you go and spoil it with a snippy comment like that! Since everything became politicised and ideologically weaponised, civilised discussion is clearly a thing of the past. So be it: Wfft! i chi.
We are or were, you’re in need of a thicker skin my friend. Irony and humour have been purged, if they ever existed on here in the first place. My vote was for fair play for all. What was the reason for your vote again ? Ill informed ignorance is no excuse, why didn’t Plaid explain to the locals and the incomers what side our bread was buttered and what that little circle of stars on a blue background really, honestly meant. Truth is we were let down by politicians across the board. The level of informed thinking was a… Read more »
The reason for my vote? The same as yours, of course: Hope for fair play – Chwarae teg. The means to that are a shot in the dark for anyone, despite all the competing pundits, experts and sincere ordinary people muddling along trying their best to make sense of it all. I’m still a friend of the Truth, at least – even though it is an awkward bu**er that’s not easy to pin down. Brexit was ‘really, honestly’ my opinion and I read and thought about it a lot so spare me the phrase ‘ill-informed ignorance’ you people on the… Read more »
Gerontophobia ! How’s the treatment going…amicable? Only because I have a sense of humour, when did you last see yours?
Brexit has made the UK such an open minded, tolerant country.
Snakes and ladders, and this snakes tail went right back to the seventies and it provided the water of hate to germinate this semi-dormant evil seed. It popped up everywhere even in Red Cross shops that had GB radio playing and elderly folk behind the counter spouting revenge rhetoric kept in aspic for 42 years…
Wow! That’s some paranoia! I think you may be suffering from gerontophobia.
‘Signs and symptoms of gerontophobia can include trembling, sweating, racing heart, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness, light-headedness, crying, chest discomfort, fear of a loss of control, nausea, and general anxiety when exposed to the elderly. Gerontophobia can cause people to withdraw from situations in which they know the elderly will be present. It can sometimes result in depression’. How’s the treatment going?
Bugger me, you must be psychic, do you think I should give up my unpaid role as a carer then…
Point taken!
The woman in the Red Cross shop and the couple in the hospice shop and the ones on the steps of my friend’s shop who didn’t understand where Wales’ infrastructure money was coming from were all real enough. Contrary to the protestations of the press etc, we were not in the least surprised that Brexit happened. you only had to listen to the vox pop.
Look to be frank they were all refugees from the west midlands nurtured on Enoch Powell, I was raised on the Rivers of Babylon…
I think generally people were beginning to have the reasonable suspicion that it was just our own money we were getting back, with certain inflated fees and costs having first been subtracted. Also there was a real grievance about the democratic deficit. Most people had no sense of being equal Members of this posh Club, feeling more like idiots whose only participation appeared to be the privilege of paying the bills of those better off than us. We didn’t feel in control any more. The fact that Brexit idealism made us far too optimistic about the alien race of politicians… Read more »
Noble causes are seldom promulgated by Liars, Cheats and Thieves unless it is a tactic of a confidence trick…
I hope we in Cymru learn from this…
To paraphrase Lemmy “the Tories are never on your side”…
What you are determined to overlook, my false friend, is that there are and have always been just as many Liars, Cheats. Thieves and confidence tricksters on the Left as on the Right of politics. Morality is not a political but an ethical creation. You are colossally naive if you cannot acknowledge that ‘The road to Hell is paved with good intentions’. Politics really has destroyed all civilised Society.
Read Politicians if it makes you feel better Phil…
Food bank in Swansea burgled, I don’t remember that happening under a Labour Government*…
A Brexiter and Climate Denialist is something to be…
To annoy J. Lennon.
*Until now…
Irony for god’s sake. Arglwydd Mawr…