Thread by @theousherwood

A short thread about John McDonnell's claim Ian Austin is "employed by the Tories".

Starting with a fact check.

1). Ian Austin was made the Prime Minister's trade envoy by Theresa May last July. It is an unpaid role.

And he is doing the work of the Prime Minister.

1/.

2). Ian Austin is the PM's trade envoy. That means should Labour win the election, he would be Corbyn's trade envoy to Israel for the length of time it would take the Labour leader to walk through the door to No10 and to his new study, pick up the phone and sack him.

3). The office of Prime Minister has 25 trade envoys to countries around the world.

They include the Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, Rushanara Ali, who is the PM's trade envoy to Bangladesh.

You can see the full list here: gov.uk/government/gro…

4). The claim Ian Austin is in the employ of the Tories is of course an anti-Semitic trope in itself.

It's the classic "hidden threat".

The insinuation is Ian Austin is pretending really to be Mr Neutral, concerned about anti-Semitism, but really he is a Tory in disguise.

Quick Google and you can find this trope very easily on the internet.

He says he is American, but really he is Jewish.

This claim was of course made on the stage at an event in Liverpool Riverside, which was the seat of Dame Louise Ellman, a Labour Jewish MP who quit last month.

In her resignation letter, she wrote: ""I believe that Jeremy Corbyn is not fit to serve as our prime minister."