A senior academic at the University of Bristol who specialises in inclusion, inequality and discrimination has called for someone to “blow up” a conference organised by the Jewish Labour Movement.
Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Bristol Harriet Bradley made the comment while reposting another remark about the gathering which read: “If you wanted to know where you can find every racist, n**ce and sh**house in Britain, now you know.”
Above that post, which inlcuded the poster adverstising the JLM event, Bradley wrote: “Somebody blow up the venue!”
The ex-Labour councillor has since deleted the tweet but other inflammatory posts by Bradley remain online.
In one she says about the conference: “God preserve us. I’d walk through mud and nettles rather than listen to these evil people.”
Another message from Bradley, posted on 5 December, reads, “All Zionist supporters should go straight to hell. They are demons not human beings”.
The professor has written about inclusion and discrimination. She describes herself as an “ex-Labour councillor”, a “passionate socialist” and an academic who studies “inequalities of class, gender, ethnicity”.
The JLM event on January 14 is due to host some of the party’s biggest names as speakers including Wes Streeting, Peter Mandleson, Margaret Hodge, Luciana Berger, Ruth Anderson and Louise Ellman.
Former Bristol University sociologist David Miller, a well-known anti-Zionist, was sacked in 2021 amid allegations of antisemitism.
Bradley told the JC her post about “blowing up” the conference was “only banter! A joke! But I do realise now it was in bad taste and would like to apologise to all those offended or frightened by it”.
She went on to say she “deplored the way that Labour has been taken over by pro-Zionist people and left-wing Jews have been kicked out”.
About the other posts, she said: “These are reflections of the anger I feel at the slaughter of innocent children and babies in Gaza. I deplore the violence of Hamas but it does not justify the massive violence and destruction of Gaza which in my view does amount to genocide.”