Sainsbury’s apologises for stocking conspiracy newspaper with history of defending Holocaust-deniers
Sainsbury’s has issued an apology after two of its branches were found to have stocked copies of a conspiracy newspaper that has previously come to the defence of Holocaust-deniers.
The Light is an independently-distributed newspaper that was founded in 2020. It has regularly promoted conspiracy theories relating to COVID-19 and vaccines, and has made comparisons between lockdown and vaccine regulations to those of Nazi Germany.
Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.
The newspaper has also, on at least two occasions, targeted Campaign Against Antisemitism in relation to successful prosecutions against antisemites.
In 2021, it defended the Hitler-loving radio host Graham Hart, who was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to eight counts of inciting racial hatred after action by Campaign Against Antisemitism.
An investigation by Campaign Against Antisemitism revealed that Mr Hart repeatedly claimed that Jews are “filth”; questioned whether six million Jews were really murdered in the Holocaust; praised Adolf Hitler as “the greatest man of the twentieth century”; said that “is isn’t just the white people who hate the Jews…it’s everyone hates the Jews. Everyone”; claimed that the Jews “run everything”, are “evil” and are “not of this world”; and argued that the Jews have “got to go down, they’ve just got to go down”.
The Light wrote of the sentencing: “While his opinions may seem radical, surely he is entitled to them? How does it harm anybody else for him to have a different view of history?”
Last year, the newspaper expressed support for Tahra Ahmed, a prominent Grenfell Tower volunteer aid worker who, after being reported to the police by Campaign Against Antisemitism, CST and others, was sentenced to eleven months in prison after being found guilty of publishing written material in order to stir up racial hatred.
On the Holocaust, Ms Ahmed said: “I’m not a Holocaust denier…unfortunately, six million Jews is a number that has been perpetuated and the actual number has been revised down by experts.” She affirmed using the term “Holohoax”, arguing that “it [the figures] was manipulated and exaggerated at the time” and that, regarding the actual number of deaths in the Holocaust, “The Jewish council [sic] says 3.5 million…the Red Cross says 283,000.” She also baselessly asserted that “Hitler had an agreement with Rothschild to put Jews in concentration camps so Rothschild could transfer Jews to Palestine” and approvingly quoted a known Holocaust denier. She was also pressed on why she described the expulsion of the Jews from England in the Middle Ages as a “final solution to the Jewish problem.”
Her trial was described by the newspaper “a political stitchup.”
Additionally, according to the BBC, The Light published an article by blogger Lasha Darkmoon, in which she argued that individuals should be able to question the Holocaust.
The Light’s website also lists one of its “proud sponsors” as the antisemitic hate preacher and conspiracy theorist David Icke, who has been banned from entering several European countries.
It has also been reported that The Light has endorsed content by the far-right organisation Patriotic Alternative, a UK-based group headed by the former leader of the youth wing of the BNP, Mark Collett. Mr Collett is reported to have dabbled in Holocaust denial, is regularly heard as a guest on the radio show of the former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, David Duke, and has described the Holocaust as “an instrument of white guilt”. Last month, one of its members who said that Adolf Hitler did “nothing wrong” was jailed.
A spokesperson for Sainsbury’s said that the newspaper was left in its Warlingham and Newhaven branches without its knowing, stating: “We do not stock this newspaper and it is removed from any stores where it’s left. We apologise for any upset caused”.
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