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16
Apr
Andrew Jones responds to Tom Gordon's 'grave concerns' in homophobia case
Harrogate and Knaresborough’s current and former MPs have shared a robust exchange of letters regarding homophobic views expressed by a Conservative candidate in the forthcoming Harrogate town council elections.
Last week, the Stray Ferret revealed that the Tory candidate for the Duchy ward, Anthony Murphy, has a history of publishing homophobic posts on social media.
In 2015, he posted it was a “perennial truth that homosexual sex are acts of grave depravity”. He also posted that “tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered’”, and has called on bishops to “purge the filth from the Church”.
Yesterday, he released a statement disavowing those views, and saying he’d changed.
But Tom Gordon, Harrogate and Knaresborough’s Liberal Democrat MP, wrote to his Conservative predecessor, Andrew Jones, who has publicly supported Mr Murphy’s candidature.
Anthony Murphy (centre, red scarf) pictured campaigning with Andrew Jones and the Harrogate and Knaresborough Conservatives. Picture: HK Conservative Facebook.
Mr Gordon said he had “grave concerns” about the Conservatives’ vetting process for candidates. He asked Mr Jones if he would withdraw his support for Mr Murphy as a “fit and proper person” to stand in the town council election, and if he would call on the local Conservative party to withdraw its support too.
In an 800-word response that addressed Mr Gordon's points paragraph by paragraph, Mr Jones said he was not involved in the selection process, but that he had been told by the local Conservative Association that the homophobic views expressed by Mr Murphy had been raised before he was selected.
He said that Mr Murphy had “provided confirmation that his previous comments in no way reflected his views now”.
He said:
The question the association faced was whether it allowed someone to change their mind and not be forever held by comments made years ago, once they were absolutely sure that the candidate had changed.
The association decided that change was allowed. I think it is positive to see attitudes changing.
'I deplore any kind of discrimination'
Mr Murphy, who lives in Harrogate and is the editor of the Catholic Voice magazine, appears to have made some of the comments following the passing of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, legislation that some churches, including the Catholic church, opposed.
A majority of Conservative MPs also voted against it, but it passed with heavy support from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and nearly all the smaller minority parties.
In his letter, Mr Jones said:
I deplore any kind of discrimination, whether it is based on skin colour, gender, sexuality, religion or ethnicity or any protected characteristic.
I voted for the Same Sex Marriage Bill when it went through parliament in 2013. It was for me a question of equality and the Bill corrected a significant inequality. The debate at that time, however, was very heated and many people made comments or wrote letters to legislators and the media which were grim reading. I recall there being a significant quantity and that it ranged from considered and thoughtful to way beyond anything you quoted in your letter.
The established church of our country was strongly against the Bill. Other religious groups also spoke out against the Bill, some very forcefully. I do not believe most of these groups continue to have these views and am sure they would now look back on their comments from that time with embarrassment. I place Mr Murphy’s comments in that category.
Historic questions
Mr Gordon also asked Mr Jones about other possible aspects of Mr Murphy’s past, which were not included in the Stray Ferret’s original article.
He asked:
Can you confirm whether this is the same Anthony Murphy who organised a Monday Club meeting in Harrogate in 1988 and in Ilkley with guest speaker Enoch Powell in 1989?
Is it the same Anthony Murphy who was expelled from the Bradford Conservative Party for distributing racist literature in 1988?
If he is the same man, I find it hard to believe that you did not know his history given the fact that you grew up in Ilkley and the amount of press that the event received.
Mr Jones hit back:
You highlight a meeting in Ilkley in 1988 and suggest that because I am originally from Ilkley I would know all about it because of local media coverage at the time. This is nonsense and I was completely unaware.
In 1988 I was living and working in Southampton. I had not lived in Ilkley for several years. The local press from Ilkley was of course not available in Southampton.
Trying to suggest I have some link or knowledge of a meeting nearly 40 years ago in a town I didn’t live in is so beyond tenuous it is nonsense. I have no knowledge of any meeting so do not know if it is the same person.
The Stray Ferret has not been able to confirm or disprove whether the current Conservative candidate for the Duchy ward is the same Anthony Murphy as the one Mr Gordon asks about.
Standards questions
Before signing off his letter to Mr Jones, Mr Gordon wrote:
As an advocate of high standards in public life I am sure you would agree with me that the politics of this candidate are simply not acceptable and do not reflect the values of our wider community.
But Mr Jones gave a stinging response:
I hope all MPs are advocates for high standards. I was, however, struck by the irony of your point. I wrote to your party leader on several occasions highlighting the behaviour of the local Liberal Democrats which has included just in recent years, the police being called in four times, three arrests, organised trolling, false statements and other activities. He did not even have the courtesy to reply.
I do not recall your comments when the most senior local Lib Dem councillor was arrested for anti-semitic tweeting or when the Stray Ferret ran a story about you being referred to the Gambling Commission etc.
Letter to Kemi Badenoch
Yesterday, Mr Gordon also wrote to the leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, calling on her to suspend Mr Murphy from the party and sack him as a candidate.
In his letter, which referenced the Stray Ferret's original article, he also urged her to ask the Harrogate and Knaresborough Conservative Association to apologise for selecting him and for its defence of his candidature.
Finally, he called on her to investigate the association “which seems to have gone rogue and has selected a candidate who will no doubt cause huge concern to many local residents”.
The Stray Ferret understands that Ms Badenoch has yet to reply.
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