Farage: Why I wanted to launch Jewish Alliance for Reform UK

Nigel Farage has welcomed the launch of a Jewish members’ organisation for Reform UK, but he told the audience at the inaugural event, held at a central London synagogue’s function room, that “the only sadness is that we are doing it at all.”

Addressing the audience of around 200 mainly Jewish party supporters at the launch of the Reform Jewish Alliance (RJA), Farage added:”We shouldn’t even need to think about forming a Jewish alliance in this party” before explaining that he was inspired to initiate the organisation after meeting with the family of freed British hostage Emily Damari and feeling as though there was no effective campaign calling for her release.

The Reform leader said, “I thought with Emily Damari, if we are not prepared to stand up and fight, we’re not asking for special rights for Jewish people, but to be able to live civilly in the country as everybody else should be able to do.”

Later in his well-received speech, which was disrupted briefly by heckles from Jewish Bloc activists who infiltrated the meeting,  Farage again suggested  “we shouldn’t be having to do this”, reflecting that “those of us who grew up in this country under Judeo-Christian principles have been the foundation of everything we did.”

The Reform leader also claimed “senior intelligence sources” had told him the Muslim Brotherhood, not proscribed in this country, had “been allowed to dig themselves very, very deep into the British structure.”

Farage  was introduced at Monday’s event by Alan Mendoza, the Jewish Westminster councillor and Henry Jackson Society exec director, who defected from the Conservatives to become his global affairs advisor.

Mendoza spoke of the challenges Britain faces with regard to integration, suggesting “more recent immigrants have not taken on the lesson of British values, and try to import their values into the UK.”

He said the Reform Jewish Alliance was here to act as a challenge to this development  and offered both a “home” and a “voice” to British Jews in Reform.

“It’s actually Nigel Farage who came up with this idea of the RJA,” Mendoza added, saying the leader wanted to “articulate policies” to the community and also have a “special place” for a community he feels is significant within this country.”

Mendoza then turned to historic allegations that Farage had engaged in antisemitic chants while at school in Dulwich.  “You all know there is an absolute smear campaign against this man in the press,” he said. “I can tell you, and all of you know this… There is not an antisemitic bone in this man’s body.

“I mean this man is the best friend of the Jewish community in this country… he is going to chase the antisemites out of this country and make sure British values return.”

Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, also homed in on “Judeo-Christianity”, adding “it’s the foundation of who we are as a nation” and the values of tolerance and compassion  “now under threat.”

Tice then introduced the audience to another recent high-profile Reform defector, the former Tory home secretary Suella Braverman, whose Jewish husband Rael was seated in the front row.

She praised Farage, saying “when he becomes PM he will bring an end to unprecedented antisemitism” and he will “ban the hate marches” and be “alive to the Islamism and sectarianism that is ripping the country apart.”

Gary Mond, one of the first communal defectors from the Tories to Reform also explained how the RJA  would operate as a member organisation hosting regular speakers .

He then revealed the RJA would help target “somewhere between 10 and 15 parliamentary seats” with Jewish populations to ensure as many of those Jews as possible vote for Reform UK.”

Mond also revealed that the RJA would be supportive of a separate Reform Friends of Israel group, which would arrange trips for politicians to visit Israel and be a strategic intermediary between them and Israeli counterparts.

He said it was “great” and a “real coup” that Isaac Herzog’s former chief strategist, Jason Pearlman, had agreed to become director of the Friends of Israel group, which is also due to stage a launch event in the near future.

In another big-name appearance, Robert Jenrick, told attendees that he would not have left the Tory Party “if I had thought for one moment there was an antisemitic bone in Nigel Farage’s body.”

Jenrick reflected that since Tony Blair, we had been served by leaders who cared about both the community and Israel, but despite this, he said, “antisemitism is worse today than it was back then.”

He accused these leaders of “applying sticking plasters to the problems that this country faced”, adding that while it was great to support CST “, I don’t want to make synagogues fortresses.”

Among those in attendance at the event were Campaign Against Antisemitism chief Gideon Falter and music industry manager Jonathan Shallit, and Stamford Hill activist Levi Schapiro.

Caroline Clapper, who sits on both Hertfordshire County and Hertsmere Borough councils and defected to Reform from the Tories was appointed Deputy Chair of the RJA.