Don’t Menshn Globalists

Out there on the right, the need to smear those at the other end of the political spectrum appears to be increasingly urgent, especially so if the level of desperation being applied to the smearing is anything to go by. One reliable recent smear dumped at the centre-left, and especially directed at the Labour Party since Jeremy Corbyn became leader, is to make accusations of anti-Semitism, whatever the reality of the situation.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

This has meant taking on board the idea that a party whose leader until May 2015 was Jewish became anti-Semitic in the space of less than four months, which is creative, but not in the least plausible. So there is now a search for more faux anti-Semitic memes, and here we encounter a supremely wrong-headed idea from (fortunately) former Tory MP Louise Mensch, for whom reality is a concept of great flexibility.

This means she has no problem in inventing new ways of smearing anyone anywhere near Labour with the taint of anti-Semitism, her latest wheeze being “‘Globalists’ is, like ‘zionists’ or ‘zios’ the new antisemitic code word for Jews”. Got that? Anyone calling “globalists” on anyone else is being an anti-Semite, and targeting Jews.

Here goes, then: how about this example from last June? “it would be if Vote Leave did any of those things. Which we aren't. We are globalists. Yours from NY”. Does this mean Vote Leave are Jews? Is the person calling them out an anti-Semite? That’s strange, because that person is Ms Mensch, and she backed Vote Leave.

Still, never mind, I’m sure it was an isolated occurrence. How about this Tweet from two days after the referendum? “#Brexit was our globalist movement”. It’s, er, Ms Mensch again, calling the movement of which she was part out for being, er, Jews. And calling herself anti-Semitic. Can it get any worse? It certainly can.

Fast forward to last month, and there she is again: “Lol … I am enjoying all the sad Pepes watch the globalist neocons kick Trump's flabby orange arse. Too much fun”. So by her latest reasoning, she is once again being anti-Semitic and calling someone else Jewish. She’s got this one totally wrong, hasn’t she? And not for the first time.

Just to really put the lid on it, here she is from the same day she was advancing the pretence that saying “globalist” was anti-Semitic and code for Jews. “Ed Balls is a neoliberal/neocon/globalist/elitist traitor to working people”. Er, Ed Balls is C of E. He worked alongside Ed Miliband, but that does not make him Jewish. Unless you’re a crackpot conspiracy theorist who’s not in touch with the real world.

Not that any such suggestion is being levelled at Louise Mensch, you understand.