The BBC podcast "Intrigue: Mayday" on White Helmets co-founder James Le Mesurier really is interesting. Especially if you have a niche interest in antisemitism, conspiracy theories and the Labour Party /1 bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04…
Episode 4 opens with a recording of Holocaust denier Nicholas Kollerstrom giving a speech at the Keep Talking conspiracy group exposed in this @CST_UK & @hopenothate report cst.org.uk/data/file/6/c/… /2
A regular at Keep Talking was Vanessa Beeley, a prominent purveyor of conspiracy theories about the White Helmets. According to this episode she was radicalised by pro-Palestinian activism and a visit to Gaza /3 bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0…
Shortly after that visit she began a blog. Her first post: "Palestine is the only nation that is standing firm against the Zionist entity that has infected our entire world infrastructure and is poisoning our minds, hearts and souls" 😬 /4 
Episode 7 describes the efforts of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media to persuade people that the mass killings of Syrian civilians by President Assad by chemical weapons are in fact hoaxes, "managed massacres" by the White Helmets /5 bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0…
Beeley is a member of the Working Group. So, according to the programme, are "a group of British professors from some of the country's top universities". I think they mean you, Professor David Miller of @BristolUni 👀 /6
Another fan of the "managed massacres" theory is former UK ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford. He was at a briefing in Parliament in January where some of these academics put forward their crackpot theories. He briefed Emily Thornberry when she was Shadow Foreign Secretary /7
Thornberry says she wasn't influenced by him, but Ford says "In the time of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party there was some interest in getting the wider picture on the part of what the BBC would call 'allies of Corbyn'". Who can he mean? /8
Ah! Here is a photo of Peter Ford sitting next to Piers Corbyn on Elleanne Green's rooftop terrace. Green is on the far right (ironic!). She was suspended from the Labour Party at the time and since been expelled. Allies of Corbyn indeed! /9
Antisemitism is not the central issue in this story: the central issue is the despicable, heartless denial of mass murder in Syria. But whenever conspiracy cranks gather, antisemitism will never be far away /End
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