Thread by @docrussjackson

6/9/2018: Asked about @UKLabour & antisemitism, Andrew Neil said “If this had happened in the Tory Party, whoever the Tory leader would have gone out of their way to machinegun them down, ‘just get rid of them, we can’t be seen to be tainted in this way’.”

Yet in a September 2019 Brexit debate, Jacob Rees-Mogg castigated two fellow Tories of Jewish background, Sir Oliver Letwin & Speaker John Bercow, as “#Illuminati who are taking the powers to themselves.” A month later he said “The remoaner funder in chief was George Soros”.

There is no anodyne usage of the term ‘illuminati’ in current political discourse, but I’m not aware of ANY Tories - other than Letwin & Bercow - who were remotely troubled by Jacob Rees-Mogg using the antisemitic conspiracy of the #illuminati.

And Rees-Mogg has form:

Furthermore, Attorney General Suella Braverman, Tory MP Ben Bradley, & the large group of Tories known as "The Common Sense Group", have all used the antisemitic conspiracy theory of "cultural Marxism" - which inspired far-right terrorist Anders Breivk - on numerous occasions.

In March 2018, it was Jeremy Corbyn’s apparent approval of a mural depicting #Illuminati iconography on Facebook that lit a fire under the antisemitism controversy that plagued the @UKLabour Party for years.

So how can we account for the glaringly obvious disparity in concern?

Given the Tories repeated use of antisemitic conspiracy theories, & Johnson's '72 Virgins', it's troubling that Tory MPs & Mr Neil are reticent about mentioning it.

It's one reason why people believe that #GBNews may be as blind to its own prejudices as the Tories are to theirs.

There is no doubt Mr Neil can be equally ruthless in confronting politicians of all political persuasions.

What IS troubling, is Mr Neil's seeming conviction, widely amplified, that the scourge of antisemitism is a problem coming mainly, if not almost exclusively from the Left.