Far-right Reform UK party is antisemitic; in other news, water wet. We know this will come as a shock to precisely nobody, but Britain’s answer to “what is the Tories weren’t racist enough?” have posted a hideously antisemitic caricature of Green leader Zack Polanski on their social media.
On Halloween, Friday 31 October, Reform’s Brighton & Hove branch posted the image to its official Facebook page. It depicted Polanski – who is Jewish, even if the mainstream media conveniently forgets it – as a leering, hook-nosed figure. It carried the caption “Vote Green” and “Happy Halloween”, posted alongside the comment
Watch out for Zack with his pro-Palestine, legalise drugs, open borders and breast-enlarging hypnotist tricks
Zack Polanski meme: from the Nazi playbook
The post about Zack Polanski really does hit all of the classic elements of Nazi-inspired antisemitic propaganda. The hooked nose, hunched posture, grasping hand, unshaven face, shabby clothing exposing thick chest hair, hypnotic eyes and pendulum (yes, even if Polanski worked as a hypnotist once) – they’re all there.
The Brighton & Hove Green Party were quick to call out the appalling bit of racism from the racism party. On 2 November, they put out a statement:
Brighton & Hove Green Party utterly condemn the antisemitic graphic of Green Party leader Zack Polanski posted on Friday by ‘Reform UK Brighton & Hove’ on their official Facebook page. There can be no question that the graphic is antisemitic: depicting Zack Polanski, only the fifth Jewish leader of a UK political party in history, using tropes and imagery that deliberately and intentionally draw upon Nazi propaganda.
The image itself is beneath contempt. Yet it is even more terrifying to reflect that for Reform UK, this is nothing new. This act of antisemitism represents only the latest demonstration of Reform’s openly racist and fascist platform. Nationally, they have been at the forefront of fuelling a rising tide of hatred, and discrimination. And on Reform UK Brighton & Hove’s Facebook, this antisemitic attack on Zack Polanski was followed yesterday by a further racist graphic declaring New York Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani to be a terrorist.
Campaign group Stand Up to Racism followed suit with their own critique of the post. They highlighted British fascism’s fondness for this particular stripe of antisemitism:
Reform UK’s portrayal of Zack Polanski draws on Nazi caricatures of ‘the Jew’ as a menacing, dark-skinned ‘foreigner’ who looms over the viewer, using ‘mind control’ to entrance his victim rather than engaging in rational debate (see the Nazi propaganda film The Eternal Jew, 1940 for example).
These antisemitic themes are common within British fascism. One example is ‘‘Who Are the Mind Benders?” – a 1997 pamphlet produced by the British National Party (BNP) and written by its then fuhrer Nick Griffin, which claimed Jews run the British media and use it to hypnotise the masses.
Mixing Zionism and antisemitism
Stand Up to Racism also pointed out the ridiculous inclusion of the Palestine pin on Zack Polanski’s lapel. After all, why not chuck in some Zionism alongside your antisemitism for good measure?
The inclusion of modern political elements – the Palestinian pin flag for example – deepens the potential harm by linking present day political discourse to these older antisemitic visual tropes. It recycles the conspiratorial notion that Jewish politicians or activists are deceitful, manipulative or malicious in influence. Even if presented as satire or Halloween humour, what matters is that it draws on, and normalises, the same iconography once used to justify the worst persecutions of Jewish communities.
Reform UK have been vocal about their opposition to the Palestinian cause. Their mayoral candidate Howard Cox, for example, called for a complete ban on pro-Palestine demonstrations in London. Likewise, Reform voters are the least likely to believe that Israel’s attacks on Palestinians – still a genocide, btw – have gone too far.
This combination of Zionism and gross antisemitism might look hard to reconcile, but it really isn’t. First and foremost, anti-Zionism isn’t synonymous with antisemitism, even if British politicians would love you to believe otherwise. Meanwhile, Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism – as there are plenty of non-Jewish Zionists (many of whom are far-right).
And, beyond that, there’s the simple truth that Reform UK are a party of bigots. The fact that their Islamophobia currently outweighs their hatred of Jewish people doesn’t cancel that out. The new face of British fascism is not, and will never be, a friend of any oppressed group – and, while we’re at it, the sky remains blue and water is still wet.
Featured image via the Canary
