Featured Image Credit: @clewlow_alex/Twitter
Topics: UK News, Politics, Weird, Boris Johnson
Tom Wood
The Education Minister who was heavily criticised for giving members of the public the finger outside Downing Street has defended her actions. You can see her flipping off the British public below.
Andrea Jenkyns was filmed giving a one-fingered salute to the gathered throng in Westminster as she left following Boris Johnson’s resignation speech on Thursday, 7 July.
She also shouted at the crowd, telling them ‘he who laughs last laughs loudest – wait and see, wait and see’.
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Now, she’s doubled down, claiming that she reached the ‘end of [her] tether’ with the ‘baying mob’ gathered outside the prime minister’s residence.
Her statement read: “On Thursday afternoon I went to Downing Street to watch the Prime Minister’s resignation speech.
“A baying mob outside the gates were insulting MPs on their way in as is sadly all too common.
“After receiving huge amounts of abuse from some of the people who were there over the years, and I have also had seven death threats in the last [four] years, two of which have been in recent weeks and are currently being investigated by the police, I had reached the end of my tether.
“I responded and stood up for myself. Just why should anyone have to put up with this kind of treatment."
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She concluded: “I should have shown more composure but am only human.”
After the video showing her gesture went viral on Thursday night, Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson tweeted: “Ministers aren’t expected to be perfect.
“But is it really too much to ask that they don’t treat the public like this?”
The leader of the House of Commons Mark Spencer said that Ms Jenkyns would have to be the one to ‘justify’ her actions but he would not ‘seek to condone’ how she behaved.
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He told BBC Breakfast: "I do understand emotions were running pretty high and they were pretty raw on that day. But I don't think that was the right thing to do at all."
On whether she should remain in the post that she has just been appointed to, Spencer said: "That's not my decision."
Many were outraged at Jenkyns’ gesture, as well as her description of the crowd as a ‘baying mob’.
Another video seemed to show that the crowd – behind barriers – were singing ‘Bye Bye Boris’ at the time of the gesture.
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One person tweeted: “@andreajenkyns great example to the nation's schoolchildren.
“I hope you won’t be making any comments on behaviour in schools as that would be hugely hypocritical wouldn’t it.”
Another wrote: “It's sooo reassuring to have people like @andreajenkyns in the government at this turbulent time, giving the actual finger to the ordinary working people & families they keep pretending to care about.”
A third said: “Is this what your party is about @Conservatives?”
LADbible has contacted Andrea Jenkyns for a comment.