Summary

The FSU’s General Secretary has written to Penny Mordaunt MP about a guide she commissioned, along with the Labour MP Lucy Powell, that’s designed to help Parliamentarians identify ‘conspiracy theories’ in the run-up to the General Election and which has been sent to every MP and member of the House of Lords. Although well-intentioned, it has several major flaws, e.g., two of the guide’s co-authors identified the lab leak hypothesis about Covid’s origins as a ‘conspiracy theory’ in 2020, several contemporary ‘conspiracy theories’ flagged up in the guide – such as the claim that George Soros funds anti-government protests – are in fact true and the Guide is itself guilty of promoting at least one bona fide conspiracy theory. We have asked her to withdraw it.