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Kemi Badenoch has told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry she is “less worried” about misinformation spread on social media sites such as X/Twitter than that shared on private WhatsApp groups.
The Conservative leader, who served as minister for women and equalities from 2020-2022, said “lightly reputable” sources — including the British Medical Association (BMA) — had been used to support false claims and misinformation on “back channels” during the pandemic.
Badenoch suggested that “some people from” the BMA, the registered trade union for doctors in the United Kingdom, had spread misinformation about the government concealing data about how Covid was impacting ethnic minority groups.
Commenting on the government’s role in countering misinformation more widely, Badenoch said: “The thing that government can do best is provide as much information as possible and show that we are all in it together.”
The Conservative leader was questioned by Hugo Keith KC, counsel for the Covid inquiry, about the “prevalence” of misinformation and disinformation promulgated during the pandemic and whether there is a limit on what central government can do to counter it.
“There’s always a limit on what central government can do”, Badenoch responded.
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She added: “I think it’s probably worth explaining what it is that I mean by misinformation and disinformation, people often assume that it’s you know, stuff on Twitter or X. I’m actually less worried about that sort of misinformation because it’s very public, and people who know can challenge it easily.
“So that’s an open sphere. The things that really concern me are the pieces of information that are less visible. The last time I was here, I talked about WhatsApp groups, for example, family WhatsApp groups – things that government has no insight into. Even the tech companies don’t really know what’s being shared.
“It’s all encrypted, and a lot of false information travels very quickly through those channels. And I don’t know how we can deal with that, and it’s everything from ‘vaccines will kill you’ to ‘the government is suppressing information’.
“In fact, some of it often has lightly reputable sources who are backing it up.
“I remember we had some people from the BMA who genuinely believed that we were trying to stop information from getting out about what was happening with ethnic minorities. And when you see that on a public forum, you will think, ‘Oh, well, if the doctors in the BMA think that, then it must be true’. But even they were wrong, and then that starts to propagate.
“And the thing that government can do best is provide as much information as possible and show that we are, you know, that we’re all in it together. That was one of the reasons why I decided to take part in vaccine trials. That if people thought that the government was trying to kill them, then if the minister herself was taking part in trials which were more risky than a fully tested vaccine that might help with public trust.
“But I don’t know the answer to dealing with that sort of back channel information that’s peer to peer and private, beyond the government supplying as much honesty and as much truth as possible, and also not attacking the people who are propagating this.
“So as annoyed as I was by representatives of the British Medical Association saying this, what I didn’t do was go after that, because that can actually fuel the misinformation or the conspiracy.”
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest news and analysis.
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