Conspiracy theorist group showcases convergence of far-left, including former Labour members, with far-right to promote antisemitism

Infiltration of a conspiracy theorist group has revealed a convergence of the far-left, including former Labour members, with the far-right, which come together to promote antisemitism.

Among those who have reportedly attended meetings of the Keep Talking group are:

• notorious antisemite and Holocaust denier Alison Chabloz, who became a Labour Party supporter in 2015 and against whom Campaign Against Antisemitism brought a private prosecution subsequently taken over by the Crown Prosecution Service, resulting in a conviction and landmark legal precedent;
• antisemitic conspiracy theorist, James Thring, who has apparently been linked to the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke and who spoke unchallenged about Holocaust denial at a Keep Talking event, claiming that no deaths were recorded at the Auschwitz concentration camp;
• obsessive poster of conspiracy theories and founder of the secret Facebook group, Palestine Live, Elleanne Green, who is a friend of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (who was also a member of Palestine Live, which indulged in Holocaust denial and conspiracy theories that Israel was responsible for 9/11), who accompanied the disgraced former MP Chris Williamson to court when he brought proceedings against the Labour Party over his suspension in connection with belittling antisemitism, and who was suspended by Labour in July 2018;
• suspended Labour member Pete Gregson, who was expelled from the pro-Corbyn pressure group Momentum and from the GMB trade union and suspended from the Party after suggesting that the Holocaust was exaggerated and for abusive behaviour towards a female Jewish Labour member, who went on to found Labour Against Zionism and Islamophobic Racism (Lazir), and who was a guest speaker at a Keep Talking event;
• American-Israeli activist Miko Peled, who has said that people should be free to ask “Holocaust, yes or no” because “there should be no limits on the discussion,” and has compared Israel to the Nazis, in breach of the International Definition of Antisemitism;
• co-founder of Keep Talking, Ian Fantom, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist who has appeared at a Keep Talking event with Piers Corbyn, the Labour leader’s older brother;
• notorious Holocaust denier, Nick Kollerstrom, who has reportedly described Auschwitz as “storybook gas chambers”; and
• alleged Holocaust revisionist and former Labour councillor, Gill Kaffash, who was a former secretary of the Camden branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

The exposé was a years-long project by the Community Security Trust and Hope Not Hate.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has long warned of the nexus between the far-right and the far-left. Our Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that Mr Corbyn was the candidate of choice for those holding antisemitic views and that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right.

On 28th May 2019, the Equality and Human Rights Commission launched a full statutory investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.

In the first release of its Antisemitism in Political Parties research, Campaign Against Antisemitism showed that Labour Party candidates for Parliament in the 2019 general election accounted for 82 percent of all incidents of antisemitic discourse by parliamentary candidates.

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.