Brad Bowyer resigns from PSP amid controversy over Holocaust post
SINGAPORE — Progress Singapore Party (PSP) member Bradley Peter Bowyer resigned from the PSP on Wednesday (11 August) amid flak against his Facebook post alluding that Singapore's COVID-19 safe management measures are akin to the Nazi Party's propaganda messages related to the Holocaust.
Responding to a query from Yahoo News Singapore, Kumaran Pillai, Head of Communications for PSP, said that the opposition party received Bowyer's resignation letter on Wednesday and has accepted it.
Bowyer separately made the announcement via a post on his Facebook page on Wednesday, stating that some of his views were "diverging from Progress Singapore Party’s positions" and he understood he had a choice to make.
"I believe Progress Singapore Party has massive value to add, indeed its (sic) clear from the recent national day speech by the PM that changes in thinking and policy are already being influenced by it, so in that respect I do not want to give anyone the chance to derail their good work."
Over the last few weeks, Bowyer said "cowardly" commentators had been "shouting for my blood" while attacking PSP as they did not "like the questions (he is) asking or the thoughts that (he is) sharing".
He added, "I have no time for the cancel culture as Singapore is in a crisis now, a crisis created, in no small part, by the government itself, its reactive one-dimensional mishandling of the situation and now this dangerous divisive path they are taking us on."
On Tuesday, Bowyer posted a photo of a railway track leading to the main entrance of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on his Facebook page. He juxtaposed the photo with text stating, "It didn't start with gas chambers. It started with one party controlling the media...One party censoring speech and silencing opposition."
Bowyer explained on Wednesday why he had chosen the picture "from the Holocaust". He said, "Yesterday my family and I and many hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans who have concerns about vaccination were formally made second class citizens in their own country."
He added that the online messages in relation to “unvaccinated people” have led to many including his wife feeling unsure about their “future and livelihoods”.
Bowyer claimed that he had studied the Holocaust in school and met a woman who was a survivor of the Nazi extermination policy. He added that he saw the "same creeping patterns" as the woman's experience and that he doesn't know "how long before that gets expanded to the general population all the time".
The Singaporean has been outspoken in stating his opposition against the wearing of masks and other safe management measures implemented by the government to curb the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prior to his resignation, Bowyer had been with the party since its launch in 2019. During the 2020 General Election, he contested with four party members in the Nee Soon Group Representation Constituency and lost to the ruling People's Action Party.
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