Kate Hoey Refuses To Delete EU Lie

For too many of those cheerleading for the harshest possible Brexit, faith long ago replaced reason as their sole motivation. Facts were irrelevant, except when they supported the Leave cause, or, in the case of one sad individual, could be made to look as if they supported the Leave cause. The problem with making the facts fit is that any dishonesty gets caught out. And caught out is where Kate Hoey is right now.

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Always on the look-out for quotes that support her view of the EU (entirely negative), she latched on to what appeared to be the words of Jean Monnet, known as the “Father of Europe”. The problem was that he did not say what was in Ms Hoey’s quote.

This is what she attributed to Monnet: “Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation”. Sounds ominous.

Remember it's totally untrue

It also sounds just what any ardent Brexiteer wants to hear, what they want to think the EU is really about. The problem is that Monnet did not say it. Worse, the words belong to an author who is, like Ms Hoey, a rabid Europhobe. Worse still, that person is a disgraced former Tory Parliamentary candidate who was removed by former leader Michael Howard.

Adrian Hilton (for it is he) responded to Ms Hoey “These words are taken from my book 'The Principality and Power of Europe' (Foreword by former HoC Speaker, Lord Tonypandy). I have no idea who attributed them to Monnet directly (or when or why), but they aren't a quotation, but my apprehension of his intention”. Oh dear!

And what got Hilton sacked as a Tory PPC was his claim in a Spectator article that “a Catholic EU will inevitably result in the subjugation of Britain's Protestant ethos to Roman Catholic social, political and religious teaching”, following that with the further assertion that the EU meant a “Catholic Caesar presiding over the [British] Protestant monarch”.

Hilton is not the most reliable source one might turn to when it comes to anything EU related. His “interpretation” of what the EU is about, and what its founding fathers intended, is at best shaky and at worst totally off the wall. So Kate Hoey really should have deleted that Tweet as soon as Hilton owned up to her.

But she did not, and so Brendan May offered a gentle nudge. “He never said this … The author of the book who actually wrote this personal interpretation of Monnet’s ideas has corrected you … It would therefore be proper for you to either clarify this to your readership or delete your tweet, thus not defrauding your audience”. Quite.

So what has Ms Hoey done? Well, she’s done nothing. Taken no corrective action whatsoever. But she has been Retweeting propaganda from Spiked and the Guido Fawkes blog. Which rather makes matters worse.

Kate Hoey’s pants are on fire. But she doesn’t want her fans to know.

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