Shock report reveals full extent of antisemitism in Covid conspiracy groups
Community Security Trust exposes rise in antisemitism in the direct wake of the pandemic and how far right extremists used fear of lockdown to propagate their views.
Jenni Frazer is a freelance journalist
A new report from the Community Security Trust (CST) has brought together the full extent of antisemitism within Covid conspiracy groups.
“Covid, Conspiracies and Jew-Hate: Antisemitism in the Covid-19 conspiracy movement” breaks down not only the rise in antisemitism in the direct wake of the pandemic, but also the legacy for the far right extremists, who have used fear of vaccines and lockdown to propagate their views.
CST recorded 118 antisemitic hate incidents in 2020 and 2021 that involved language or imagery linked to the pandemic, alongside anti-Jewish language or targeting. These incidents included verbal abuse and threats directed at Jewish people, graffiti blaming Jews for Covid, and antisemitic leaflets.
One man was jailed for 26 weeks in December 2021 after shouting “You Jews are spreading Covid, you’re responsible for it, you started it” at a Jewish couple at a tram station in Manchester.
In another incident, leaflets were posted through letterboxes in south Yorkshire featuring antisemitic caricatures of a Jewish face, alongside the phrases “Don’t trust the Jew Jab” and “Beware the k*ke spike”. “K*ke” is a racist slur for a Jewish person.
CST says that Britain’s largest far- right group, Patriotic Alternative, and former BNP leader Nick Griffin, have each exploited the anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown movement to spread their views.
Patriotic Alternative have handed out leaflets on anti-lockdown protests and distributed their propaganda in Covid conspiracy online spaces, in an attempt to attract recruit Covid-sceptic individuals into the far right.
Leading activists in the Covid conspiracy movement demonstrated in support of Tahra Ahmed, a Covid conspiracy activist who was sentenced to 11 months in prison for stirring up racial hatred by claiming that the Grenfell Tower fire was a “Jewish ritual sacrifice”.
Around 50 activists from the Covid conspiracy movement protested outside Ahmed’s sentencing at the Old Bailey in February 2022, in a prosecution supported by evidence provided by CST.
The report says: “This is the first time that Britain has had a domestic political movement, fuelled primarily by conspiracy theories, that is active both online and offline. It has outlived the ending of Covid restrictions and is likely to retain its influence in the future.
“Some Covid conspiracists have started to incorporate conspiracy theories about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in their online output, in an example of how the pandemic has left a legacy of a permanent conspiracy movement that will latch on to any crisis, whether domestic or global, that allows them to spread more conspiracy theories and misinformation”.
CST also notes: “An alternative form of antisemitism that became prominent in the Covid conspiracy movement is the grotesque and offensive misuse of language and symbols related to the Holocaust. Anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown protesters have worn yellow stars (similar to the identifying badges the Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust) and compared vaccination centres to death camps”.
CST recorded 118 antisemitic hate incidents in 2020 and 2021 that involved language or imagery linked to the pandemic
During the pandemic, the report says, “the Jewish community suffered from a new type of antisemitic incident known as ‘Zoom- bombing’. Due to the closure of synagogues and communal venues, the community had to suddenly rely on online platforms to hold religious, educational and social events. This led to a wave of ‘Zoom-bombings’, in which individuals or groups hijacked these online Jewish communal events to spread antisemitic hate, either by shouting out antisemitic slurs or putting antisemitic comments in the chat function for the online events. CST received 19 reports of these antisemitic incidents in 2020 and 16 in 2021”.
Piers Corbyn, brother of the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, is a leading figure in the conspiracy movement, the report says, and it highlights many of his actions during the pandemic. Piers Corbyn “led and attended numerous protests against Covid lockdowns, vaccinations and regulations.
He was arrested on several occasions and convicted of breaking Covid regulations. In February 2021, Corbyn was arrested on suspicion of malicious communications and public nuisance and bailed. The charges related to leaflets available online and posted through letterboxes in Southwark, which compared the Covid vaccine programme with Auschwitz concentration camp.
“On the leaflet, in the sign above the camp’s gates, the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” (work sets you free) are replaced by “Vaccines are safe path to freedom”, which was a headline in the Evening Standard in November 2020.
“On 18 December 2021, Corbyn spoke at a demonstration in London against vaccine certificates and Covid restrictions. He told the crowd that they needed to “get a bit more physical” and “hammer to death those scum who decided to go ahead with introducing new fascism”.
He said:“You’ve got to get a list of them…and if your MP is one of them, go to their offices and, well, I would recommend burning them down …But I can’t say that on air. I hope we’re not on air.”
In October 2021, Piers Corbyn appeared on a live online show called Weekly Patriotic Review, hosted by far-right leader Mark Collett. He interviewed Corbyn on his views about “Covid tyranny” and “forced vaccinations”. Collett talked about the “Covid scamdemic” and said: “Obviously, you and I agree on a lot of things.”
They also discussed the future of white people and Jews. Corbyn emphasised that he is not a Holocaust denier but offered to meet Collett another time to discuss the Jewish question “more fully”.
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