Nigel Farage criticised over ‘antisemitic tropes’ on far-right US talk show

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has been chastised by Jewish leaders in the UK for discussing theories linked to antisemitism with an American far-right talk-show host.

The former UKIP leader and LBC Radio host faced the wrath of the Board of Deputies and the Community Security Trust on Monday, after a Guardian investigation looked into past comments he made to Alex Jones’s Infowars show.

Jones, who blames the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting on the US government, is an American conspiracy theorist who was banned from Facebook earlier this month.

Farage has appeared on his show regularly since 2009 and was revealed to have discussed “globalists” seeking to engineer “a new world order,” ideas that Jewish security experts say are linked to the antisemitism by a dotted line.

“For Jones’s conspiracy-minded audience, Farage’s references to ‘globalists’ and ‘new world order’ will be taken as familiar code-words for antisemitic conspiracy theories,” said a spokesman for the CST.

In one exchange from 2012, Farage says “elected prime ministers in Greece and Italy [have been] removed by the bully boy bureaucrats and replaced by former Goldman Sachs employees”. The bank is well-known for its Jewish roots.

The Board said: “It is vital that our politicians distance themselves from conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists, including those who trade in antisemitic tropes. We would call on Nigel Farage to repudiate these ideas and to commit not to dignify oddball nasties like Alex Jones with his presence again.”

This is not the first time Farage has been criticised by Jewish representatives. In 2017, he appeared to agree with an LBC caller who suggested that the pro-Israel lobby in the US was as dangerous as Russian hackers, saying that American Jews were disproportionately powerful.

“There are about six million Jewish people living in America, so as a percentage it’s quite small, but in terms of influence it’s quite big,” Farage said. When the caller suggested that Israel had politicians “in their pockets”, Farage replied: “Well in terms of money and influence, yep, they are a very powerful lobby.”