1/4 I came across my interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg on 11th Feb, 2016. We talked–inevitably– about Brexit, and within that about immigration and refugees. This quote was filed, but didn’t make the final edit. I thought it was interesting in light of the debate raging today: 2/4 Rees-Mogg said he didn’t believe “broadly” that people come to Britain for benefits. “And I don’t like this view of immigrants. If you meet people that come from foreign countries, they’ve actually done something really rather remarkable.”

I have been monitoring the below the line comments on The Spectator for a while – call it research – and noticed over past months an uptick in racist dog whistles 1/7 There were always the references to “Klaus Schwab” “globalist” conspiracies (antisemitic old chestnuts), and the recurrent descriptive of Rishi Sunak as “smarmy” 2/7