Tory Anti-Semitism Strikes Again

Some commentators make the mistake, when seeing yet another gaffe from Mansfield’s Tory MP Ben Bradley, of concluding that he is stupid. They are wrong: Bradley is anything but. He was, after all, the privileged recipient of a private school education: he attended Derby Grammar School, which is actually located outside the city, in the village suburb of Littleover. The school is “academically selective”. Stupid he is not.

Ben Bradley. Another privileged Tory

More likely is that all those apparently off-the-cuff comments that Bradley has made, only to row back from them after others have passed severely adverse comment, have been deliberately formulated. It is with that thought in mind that his latest apparent off-piste excursion should be assessed. And it concerns anti-Semitism.

Bradley has been highly opinionated on the subject in the past, especially when it gave him an opportunity to attack the Labour Party. When Theresa May was PM, he sneered “What an absolute car crash from Jeremy Corbyn at #PMQs - blamed the PM for a decision taken by Labour in 2009, and then accused HER of being 'callous', when he walked out and ignored pleas from his own MPs over antisemitic abuse yesterday!! #LabourAntisemitism”. The PMQs exchange had not been about anti-Semitism.

That was how keen Bradley was to pivot to the subject. He was at it again in July last year, claiming “Rather than accept they have a problem with #antisemitism and deal with it, #Labour plan to mob the media with pre-concocted messages, pushed out to their MPs before they've even seen the programme. #InDenial about #Racism”.

So it might be thought that Bradley would have done a little research on the subject - such as finding out what constitutes an anti-Semitic trope, and some examples thereof. Having become thus knowledgeable, he would not make the mistake of using an easily identifiable trope himself. But, it seems, that thought would have been sadly misplaced.

After one Tweeter suggested to him “You should be worried about why you don’t want to take part in ‘unconscious bias’ training”, off he went. “Because it's built on the premise of modern day class warfare; cultural Marxism for the 21st century. Replace 'working classes' with intersectionalism... 'identities' are 'haves' or 'have nots' based solely on physical characteristics. In short, it's hard-left divisive bollocks!” Hear that alarm bell ring!

Cultural Marxism. Not just any old anti-Semitic trope, but one straight out of the Third Reich playbook. Worse, it’s the same anti-Semitic trope that Suella Braverman, now inexplicably elevated to the post of Attorney General, used recently, and which earned her a rebuke from the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

So no-one should have been surprised when Martin Abrams tagged the BoD, Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard, “Lord” John Mann and various others, putting the obvious question “Here's a Tory MP using a far right and antisemitic conspiracy theory … Where's the public outrage?” More Tory anti-Semitism. More media crickets.

And don’t excuse Bradley by saying he’s stupid. Because he is not.

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