Abortive British Association of Social Workers motion against International Definition of Antisemitism proposed by Cardiff University lecturer and Plaid Cymru activist with worrying record
It has emerged that the proposer of an abortive motion against the International Definition of Antisemitism at the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) is a professor at Cardiff University and a Plaid Cymru activist with a worrying record.
That motion has now been deferred.
But it has now emerged that Motion 8 at the BASW Annual General Meeting, which called on the union to abandon the Definition, was proposed by Abyd Quinn Aziz. Mr Aziz is the Director for the MA in Social Work at Cardiff University and a prominent activist for the Plaid Cymru Party. Mr Aziz’s online output is full of support for figures who have made inflammatory comments about Jews.
Mr Aziz appears to have a good relationship with the rapper Kareem Dennis, known as Lowkey. Mr Dennis is a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). A month-long investigation by Campaign Against Antisemitism in 2017 exposed extensive antisemitic bigotry amongst PSC supporters on social media. Mr Dennis has previously described Israel as a “racist endeavour” in direct and deliberate contravention of the International Definition of Antisemitism, described Zionism as “antisemitic”, spoken of the “Zionist lobby” in the context of global capitalism, has reportedly backed the disgraced former Labour MP Chris Williamson, defended the disgraced academic David Miller, and has repeatedly supported the antisemite Jeremy Corbyn.
Mr Aziz has also said on Twitter that there is “ethnic cleansing in Israeli psyche [sic]” and retweeted an article which describes Zionism as a “Jewish supremacist ideology”.
Mr Aziz is also the BME Section Chair for Plaid Cymru, and has used his position to offer his public support for the controversial party figure, Sahar al-Faifi, who also has a history of making inflammatory remarks about Jews.
Mr al-Faifi’s comments include the claim that Jews “cause corruption”, accusations about the “Rothschilds Jews” in reference to the well-known historically-Jewish Rothschild banking family, accusations that “pro Zionists pro-war individuals [sic]” were behind the 2017 London Bridge terror attacks, a post that compared Israel’s policies to those of the Nazis, and the antisemitic conspiracy theory that Israel was somehow behind the murder of George Floyd in June 2020.
Campaign Against Antisemitism advocates for zero tolerance of antisemitism in public life. To that end we monitor all political parties and strive to ensure that any cases of concern are properly addressed.
