Rees-Mogg ‘hate’ furore was a lesson in not judging too quickly
SOMETIMES, WE in the Jewish community can have the tendency to see antisemitism where it does not exist — or at least, where it does not probably exist.
That was the JC’s view when we decided not to report online Jacob Rees-Mogg’s remarks about George Soros last week — despite Lord Alf Dubs accusing him of copying “the far-right’s antisemitic playbook”, and calling for his head.
In House of Commons Business Questions, Mr Rees-Mogg had pointed out the Hungarian-born investor’s record as a financial contributor to anti-Brexit movements — and this was seized upon as an echo of antisemitic tropes of the Jewish puppet master manipulating global politics from the shadows.
This was an interpretation you can only make in extreme bad faith — especially when you consider the context of his words. The leader of the House of Commons was responding to a challenge by his opposite number, Valerie Vaz, over the integrity of his friend and political ally Crispin Odey, a hedge fund manager who she said “made £220 million overnight” by shorting the pound following the currency’s slump in the aftermath of the 2016 referendum.
Mr Rees-Mogg invoked Mr Soros because the Hungarian financier made an estimated $1 billion profit speculating against the pound during the 1992 Black Wednesday crisis. Effectively what he said was: “How dare you question my friend Crispin’s conduct when Mr Soros, who has made no secret of his financial support of antiBrexit groups, has also profited from the collapse of our currency?”
It’s not exactly an intelligent point — Mr Odey has been accused of funding a political movement from which he has directly profited. But antisemitic? Not necessarily.
When I spoke to Lord Dubs, one of the community’s great ambassadors, he said he responded as he did because of the antisemitic attacks Mr Soros faces in his home country from Viktor Orbán and others, sensing that “Rees-Mogg was picking those up”. But he also graciously admitted that he may have “rushed into it a bit, as one does sometimes”.
Some of the left were quick to jump on Mr Rees-Mogg’s words — and to question the JC for not covering it — but it seems they may have seen something that wasn’t there. Indeed, this same tendency can be seen when scrutinising figures in the Labour Party.
But interestingly, there may actually have been a sinister element to Mr Rees-Mogg’s comments which completely passed everyone by. His description of Mr Soros as the “remoaner funder-in-chief” may have been crude and tedious but it was not invalid: Mr Soros did support Best for Britain, albeit an organisation established after the 2016 referendum.
The investor and philanthropist has, by the way, made no secret of his donations to the group, saying his opposition to Brexit is borne of nothing but his affection for the UK.
But Mr Rees-Mogg also claimed Mr Soros was “one of the major funders — allegedly — of the Remain campaign”, for which there seems to be absolutely no evidence. Neither Mr Soros nor his Open Society Foundations are listed by the Electoral Commission as donors to the official Remain campaign. It is possible that he helped to fund groups that subsequently donated or supported the ‘In’ campaign. But even if this were true, it does not seem to be in the public domain, nor are there any media reports of Mr Soros lending financial support to the Remain campaign.
So why did Mr Rees-Mogg assume this is the case? Could he perhaps be susceptible to antisemitic prejudice?
The JC invited the Conservative Party to clarify his claim. But in the meantime, perhaps the lesson we should draw from this is to avoid the trap of seeing antisemitism everywhere. Instead of immediately jumping in two-footed, it is more sensible to take a deep breath, consider context and actually think about what’s been said. Because when we do, we may find the real antisemitic tendencies we suspected all along.
Lord Dubs said he admitted that he may have ‘rushed into it a bit’ Rees-Mogg’s description of Soros as the ‘remoanerin-chief’ may have been crude but it was not invalid