The Green party councillor being investigated by the GMC

A newly-elected Green councillor who is also an NHS GP is being investigated by the General Medical Council after The Spectator revealed that she repeatedly attacked ‘Zios’ and called on people to ‘burn Zionism to the ground.’ Rebecca Jones, a doctor at the Hilly Fields practice in Lewisham, and councillor for the nearby Blackheath ward, announced on her Facebook page that the medical regulator has ‘opened an investigation into my fitness to practice.

It’s one of the worst bits of professional news a doctor can receive.’ The GMC can suspend or prohibit a doctor from practice. Jones remains defiant, however, claiming that it is simply an attempt to ‘censor and silence doctors who speak out against Israel’s genocidal regime… We must fight, if only for our little corner of justice.’ Jones described our accurate reporting as a ‘smear’ and said she had been targeted because she was standing for the Green party and ‘oppose[s] Zionism’.

Let’s remind Dr Jones of what she said on her social media channels. She posts on Facebook and Instagram as ‘The Vegan Doctor,’ complete with a personal logo of her in a stethoscope and, er, a balaclava. She has a separate personal account, Rebecca Ellen Jones. The offending posts were done from the Vegan Doctor accounts. As well as the demand to ‘burn Zionism,’ Jones said: ‘Zios seem to use doublethink and doublespeak a lot… I’m still amazed by the way they, the media and the colonialists try to make us believe that anti-zionism [is]… extreme.’

The Bob Vylan chant calling for death to the IDF was ‘amazing.’ She posted someone reading the purported last will and testament of Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the October 7 attacks, a reading she described as ‘beautiful.’ There are multiple other slighting references to ‘Zios.’ Most popular All these posts have been removed, so presumably there are some things which even renowned fighters for justice now realise are wrong. But others with a direct bearing on Jones’s work as a medic remain available to this day.

Last year, she posted that though doctors are ‘discouraged from talking about politics, religion and morals with patients,’ they in fact have a ‘duty to speak up for and to their patients,’ presumably by giving them some of the extreme views about Zionism, killing and Israel above. She added that ‘maybe I’ll wait until after the CQC [Care Quality Commission] inspection [of her GP practice] is over, though.’ This appears to show she was aware that she risked breaching professional standards.

In the same post, Jones quoted the ‘amazing anarchist’ Pyotr Kropotkin: ‘You doctors… come with your scalpel and dissect for us, with an unerring hand, this society of ours, hastening to putrefaction. Tell us what a rational existence should and might be. Insist, as true surgeons, that a gangrenous limb must be amputated when it may poison the whole body.’ In another ‘Vegan Doctor’ post, now deleted, she said : ‘I can’t be a safe space for anyone excusing Israel’s actions.

I’ll never be unsafe for/ towards anyone, but I can’t hold space for you if you think that Zionism and the resulting atrocities are ok.’ Most British Jews, of course, are Zionists and/or supporters of Israel. What, if anything, does this mean for a ‘Zionist’ or Israel-supporting patient who needs treatment from Dr Jones? At least one of Jones’s campaigning pro-Palestinian videos appears to have been shot in a consulting room or medical setting, which gives the impression that she was acting in a professional capacity.

GMC guidance says that ‘how you behave when using social media matters. Medical professionals, like everyone else, have rights to freedom of belief, privacy, and expression.’ But ‘you must not use social media to abuse, discriminate against, bully, harass or deliberately target any individual or group,’ presumably even including Zionists. More broadly , in everything they do, doctors must ‘make sure their conduct justifies patients’ trust in them and the public’s trust in the profession.’

Doctors, ‘must also not express their personal beliefs, whether political or otherwise, to patients in ways that exploit their vulnerability or could reasonably cause them distress’ and ‘must not discriminate against [patients] or let their personal views affect their relationship with them or the treatment they provide or arrange.’ Jones, a Green candidate in Lewisham when we exposed the posts, was never suspended by the party or had the Green ticket removed.

Indeed, the official London Green party account posted a supportive message (‘hope you are OK!’) on her Instagram post about our reporting. She was subsequently elected a councillor. She is at least the third Green candidate exposed by The Spectator to face regulatory or police action. Two candidates in Lambeth, one of whom was also elected, are under criminal investigation for stirring up racial hatred. The Green party was approached for comment.