When is the march against Tory anti-Semitism?

Even though the Tory party have been caught out fielding two absolutely despicable local election candidates, the mainstream media focus is still firmly on Labour when it comes to anti-Semitism.

George C. Stoakley

When Pete Wilson had Tory local election propaganda shoved through his door he decided to check out what the candidates were saying on Twitter. What he found was absolutely disgusting. One of the candidates describing himself as a "libertarian Conservative" had used the phrase "sweating like a Jew in an attic" (a reference to Anne Frank) as well as a load of other bigoted extreme-right rubbish including the use of homophobic slurs, a joke about AIDS being "weaponised semen", and a call for handguns to be legalised in Britain featuring the hashtag #ArmBritain.

After the comments were exposed Stoakley locked down his Twitter account to prevent anyone else from finding incriminating evidence of his anti-Semitism and bigotry, and the Tory party have simply decided to ignore the scandal in the hope that it goes away rather than immediately suspending him and issuing an apology that such an individual was ever selected as a Tory council candidate.

Darren Harrison

Just one week previously another Tory local election candidate was exposed as being a supporter of the extreme-right white supremacist Generation Identity movement who are so extreme that their leaders have been banned from entering the UK by the Tory government.

Generation Identity is an absolute hotbed of anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry (especially Islamophobic abuse), yet the Tories saw fit to stand the active neo-Nazi fanatic and Generation Identity supporter Darren Harrison as a Conservative local election candidate in Watford.

Tory anti-Semitism

Research by the Campaign against anti-Semitism has found that anti-Semitic attitudes are far more prevalent amongst Tory supporters than Labour supporters. In fact YouGov polls have repeatedly demonstrated that anti-Semitic views are so commonplace amongst Tories that they're far more prevalent amongst Tory voters than in the general public!

Any coverage of the Labour anti-Semitism scandal should be framed in the context that Labour are actually doing something to root out anti-Semites in their ranks, while the Tories do nothing to confront anti-Semitism and bigotry in their party (other than temporarily suspending their bigots and then letting them sneak back in once the fuss dies down).

Theresa May's anti-Semitism

When Jeremy Corbyn confronted Theresa May about the devastating impact of Tory local government cuts in March 2018 Theresa May retorted with a classic whataboutery distraction focusing on the much publicised Labour anti-Semitism issue, but by stating that "there's no place in Labour for those who want to tackle anti-Semitism" she's clearly using a vile anti-Semitic trope to attack all Jewish members of the Labour Party as "self-hating Jews".

When the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom can resort to lobbing anti-Semitic tropes in order to evade responsibility for the dreadful consequences of their ruinous obsession with hard-right austerity dogma without a whisper of criticisms from the mainstream press, it suddenly becomes obvious that most of them don't give a damn about anti-Semitism, and just see the issue as a convenient stick to beat Jeremy Corbyn with.

The Tories' anti-Semitic friends

Let's not forget that the Tory party have fostered very close links with some of the most anti-Semitic governments on earth. Anti-Semitism is rife in Saudi Arabia, and the Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán just won another term in power via a profoundly anti-Semitic election campaign.

Do the Tories criticise either of these regimes? 

No, they continually grovel before the Saudis begging for more arms contracts, and Boris Johnson sent Orbán a fawning congratulation Tweet on his election win saying "We look forward to working with our Hungarian friends to further develop our close partnership".

The mainstream media double standard

The Tories can field bigoted anti-Semites and neo-Nazis as their election candidates, they can grovel and fawn over some of the most anti-Semitic regimes on earth, their supporters can be found to be the most anti-Semitic of the lot on numerous occasions, and their leader can even be seen using the vile "self-hating Jew" trope in parliament, yet the mainstream media will never stand up and accuse them of anti-Semitism.

The reason is obvious. If mainstream media pundits really cared about anti-Semitism then they'd demand that Boris Johnson condemn Victor Orbán rather than cosying up to him. If they gave a damn they'd ask why the Tories keep standing anti-Semites and neo-Nazis as their election candidates. If they gave a damn they would highlight the fact that anti-Semitism is far more common amongst Tories than labour supporters, and they would have furiously condemned Theresa May for using an anti-Semitic trope in parliament.

Through their inaction they've proven conclusively that they don't actually care about anti-Semitism at all, they just see it as a convenient stick to attack Jeremy Corbyn with (despite the fact that anti-Semitic views amongst Labour supporters have fallen dramatically since he became Labour leader).

And the worst thing about this double standard?

It's the fact that when the mainstream media make a huge fuss about anti-Semitism in one political party whilst turning a total blind eye to it in another, they trivialise the fight against anti-Semitism, which remains a very serious issue in British society, alongside many other dangerous forms of bigotry such as anti-Muslim hate, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and extreme-right fanaticism - all of which are welcomed and tolerated within the Tory party.

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