Robert Peel (1834–1846)

In 1830, Robert Peel spoke in Parliament in opposition to the Bill to remove civil disabilities from Jews.^[1] During this time, a Jew could not open a shop within the city of London, become a barrister, graduate from university, or be a member of Parliament.^[1] Peel opposed 'Dechristianising the Legislature', and commented:

The Jew is not a degraded subject of the state; he is rather regarded in the light of an alien – he is excluded because he will not amalgamate with us in any of his usages or habits – he is regarded as a foreigner. In the history of the Jews... we find enough to account for the prejudice which exists against them.^[2]

Edward Smith-Stanley (1846–1868)

Prior to 1858, Jews were not allowed to become Members of Parliament (MPs) unless they embraced Christianity, such as Benjamin Disraeli who was born Jewish but became an Anglican at the age of 12.^[3] This changed in 1858, with the Jews Relief Act, which removed legislative barriers to Jews entering Parliament.^[4] Conservative opposition to the Act included:

• Conservative MP Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (Lord Salisbury) opposed Jewish inclusion in Parliament because, he said, a Jew, due to his religious convictions, would be opposed to "all ... [present MPs] were there to uphold", and would take a "hostile" position towards Parliament.^[5]
• George Bankes "expressed his horror at the possibility of seeing a Jew Premier in Parliament".^[6]
• John Pemberton Plumptre "intended no insult to the Jews in asserting that they were unfit to legislate or interfere in the affairs of a Christian nation".^[6]
• Thomas Dyke Acland and Charles Law warned that every Jew in Parliament would "displace a Christian" and accused the Jews of the City of London of conspiring to get John Russell elected and, therefore, having John Russell under their control.^[6]
• Alexander Beresford Hope opposed the bill "on the ground that there was no pre-eminence or super-excellence in the Jewish race which would justify the house in relaxing" the rules about admittance.^[6]
• Charles Newdigate Newdegate claimed that "the wealth of one distinguished Jew had been liberally lavished to obtain petitions in favour of the Bill"^[6] and that behind the calls for Jewish Emancipation was a "Talmudic conspiracy... to destroy the free constitution and religion of Protestant Englishmen".^[7]
• Alexander Baillie-Cochrane saw the "apathy with which this Bill had been received in the country as no source of congratulation, but as a very terrible sign of the corruption of the times".^[6]
• Philip Stanhope was of the opinion that "Jewish emancipation would lower the tone of religious opinion in England".^[6]
• Spencer Horatio Walpole said that the Jews were of a "separate creed and interest" and were "not a citizen of this country, but of the world".^[6]
• Archibald Douglas said that Jews "were unfortunately actuated by a love of money, which was highly discreditable".^[6]
• Robert Inglis argued that Jews were "a separate nation with a separate creed".^[6]
• Henry Ker Seymer, Richard Spooner, Frederic Thesiger, Alexander Raphael, Francis Scott, Henry Goulburn, Joseph Napier,^[6] Cropley Ashley-Cooper (Lord Ashley), and Henry Home-Drummond, also opposed the bill and the inclusion of Jews.^[5]

Benjamin Disraeli (1868–1881)

Benjamin Disraeli endured prejudice from some Conservatives throughout his political career.^[4] Disraeli was described by one backbench Conservative, Sir Rainald Knightley,^[8] as "that hellish Jew", and by some others simply as "the Jew".^[4] Edward Smith-Stanley (Earl of Derby) criticised Disraeli for holding beliefs he considered un-English.^[9] Another Conservative politician said of him, "he bears the mark of the Jew strongly about him... He is evidently clever but superlatively vulgar".^[4] Writing to his sister, Austen Chamberlain said Disraeli was an "English patriot [but] not an Englishman".^[10][11]

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1885–1902)

Organized antisemitism in the United Kingdom can be traced to the proto-fascist^[12][13] paramilitary^[14] group, the British Brothers' League (BBL),^[15][16] which was founded in 1901 by members of the Conservative Party,^[12][17] including MPs Howard Vincent and William Evans-Gordon,^[12] and drew its membership from sections of the Conservative Party.^[18] The BBL, the "largest and best organised of all the anti-alien groups" of its time^[17] was "Conservative-led and... Conservative-dominated".^[19] It sought to pressure the government into stopping the arrival of poor Jews into Britain.^[15] It was successful in that its pressure was instrumental in persuading parliament to pass the 1905 Aliens Act.^[15]

William Evans-Gordon was elected to parliament in 1900 on an anti-alien platform^[19] and began campaigning for changes to the government's immigration policies in his first year of office.^[20] Within their parliamentary work, Evans-Gordon and other Conservative MPs obscured their antisemitism within advocacy for what might have been considered a reasonable immigration policy.^[20] Within their discourse, "immigrant" and "alien" often meant "Jew".^[21][20] With four Conservative MPs in support at its inaugural meeting, the BBL was founded on 9 May 1901.^{[note 1]} The next month, Walter Murry Guthrie called a meeting of East London Conservative Associations and out of this initiative another group was formed with the aim of pressuring the government to restrict immigration: the Londoners' League.^[18] The Londoners' League worked with the BBL at a lower tier^[22] and had a number of Conservative MPs and councillors as speakers, including Evans-Gordon, Samuel Ridley, Harry Samuel, Thomas Herbert Robertson, David John Morgan and Arnold White.^{[note 2]} The BBL stirred up widespread racism against Jewish immigrants who had moved to the city to find refuge because they had been displaced by pogroms in their home countries.^[16][23]

On the tier above the BBL was the Parliamentary Alien Immigration Committee.^[18] The committee was founded in August 1901 and comprised all the East End MPs (except the Liberal Party MP for Whitechapel, Stuart M. Samuel).^[24] Based on the same ideas as those of the BBL, Evans-Gordon formed the committee to work within Parliament.^[25] As a parliamentary pressure group, it urged the government to pass restrictive immigration controls.^[24]

Progress towards the Aliens Act 1905

In 1902, Evans-Gordon was instrumental in setting up a Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, of which he was the chair^[26] and a "key member", submitting reports to the commission.^[20] The Royal Commission was a "Parliamentary platform against Jewish migrants"^[27] and concerned itself almost entirely with Jews.^[28] Sympathies for the BBL "stretched into the secretaryship of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration".^[18] In February 1903, the antisemitic^[29][30][31] Immigration Reform Association (IRA) was established with Richard Hely-Hutchinson (Earl of Donoughmore) as president – a group considered respectable within the anti-alien network; and MPs who had been involved with the BBL continued their work through the Association, which played a prominent role in putting pressure on the government to pass restrictive immigration controls.^[18] Working with Harry F. Smith, a Conservative Party agent, the IRA organised a major demonstration in November 1903, with the BBL providing a procession.^[18]

In 1903, Evans-Gordon wrote The Alien Immigrant^[18] (which was an expansion of the reports he had made to the Royal Commission) with the aim of influencing public opinion on immigration.^[20] In this, he addressed the so-called "Jewish question", asserting that "the settlement of large aggregations of Hebrews in a Christian land has never been successful",^[32] and that the "Hebrew colony ... unlike any other alien colony in [Great Britain], forms a solid and permanently distinct block – a race apart, as it were, in an enduring island of extraneous thought and custom", to the extent that "east of Aldgate one walks into a foreign town".^[33]

The Royal Commission on Alien Immigration reported its findings in August 1903,^[27] which would inform the Aliens Act of 1905,^[24] recommending strong, restrictive laws against alien entry into Britain.^[34] In 1904, the Conservative Home Secretary Aretas Akers-Douglas brought a bill to Parliament that would "make provision with respect to the Immigration of Aliens, and other matters incidental thereto".^[35] Within the bill, "alien" was "an implicit reference to 'the Jew"'.^[36] Evans-Gordon was a primary author of the 1904 immigration bill.^[20]

In 1905, the revised bill passed into law.^[35] Evans-Gordon's speeches were "the primary catalyst for the final passage of the 1905 Act".^[20] He became known as the "father of the Aliens Bill".^[15] The 1905 Aliens Act, while not mentioning Jews outright, appealed to racial prejudice against the Jews and was designed to stop the arrival of Eastern European Jews into Britain.^[15][28] The BBL had succeeded:^[15] it largely was responsible, along with its supporting MPs, for the passing of the 1905 Aliens Act.^[37]

William Joynson-Hicks

In a 1908 by-election, standing against Winston Churchill (a Liberal at the time), the Conservative candidate, William Joynson-Hicks, was elected to Parliament as MP for Manchester North West.^[38] During his election campaign he took a stance against the Jews, which continued throughout his political career, announcing that "he was not going to pander for the Jewish vote. He would treat those who were Englishmen as Englishmen, but as to those who put their Jewish or foreign nationality before their English nationality, let them vote for Mr Churchill".^[38] He threw aspersions on his opponent, publicly saying Churchill's supporters were "bogus deputations going to him from a few Jews who were not even on the register".^[38]

During World War I, Joynson-Hicks associated with the ultra-nationalistic British Empire Union (formerly called the Anti-German Union). In a "strongly antisemitic" campaign, in which Jewishness and German origin were conflated, the Union demanded the internment and repatriation of "enemy aliens", many of whom were Jews.^[38]

After World War I, Joynson-Hicks questioned the trustworthiness of Anglo-Jewish MPs and civil servants. He spoke out against Sir Herbert Samuel when he was appointed High Commissioner for Palestine.^[38] Joynson-Hicks also continued his involvement in extra-parliamentary antisemitic agitation. He was involved with groups composed of a "comprehensive cross-section of anti-Jews": for example, George Clarke (Lord Sydenham), G. K. Chesterton, Nesta Webster, Rosita Forbes and Arnold White.^[38] Sir Charles Yate, George Clarke (Lord Sydenham), Henry Percy (Duke of Northumberland) and several other anti-Zionist MPs produced the publication The Conspiracy Against the British Empire, a "boiled-down version" of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.^[38] Joynson-Hicks was in favour of self-government by "the majority in Palestine" and proposal of a resolution to that effect, which was perhaps a result of his antisemitism.^[38] At some point in his career, he commented that the Jewish immigrants to Palestine were "the sweepings of the ghettos of Central Europe".^[5] He was also involved in the hunt for "aliens", which led to many Russian Jews being expelled from Britain.^[38]

National League for Clean Government

The National League for Clean Government was a political reform movement, created partly in response to the Marconi scandal,^[39] that directed antisemitism towards the alleged "Jewish plutocracy",^[18] which it believed was conspiring to subvert British politics.^[39] A number of its members and supporters were antisemites, including Conservative MP Rowland Hunt.^[39][18] At a meeting of the group in 1913, Hunt spoke about the "influence" which controlled Britain and, in a "thinly disguised reference to Jewish financiers", said, "We are really in danger of being ruled by alien votes and foreign gold... The aliens and foreign plutocrats are driving out British blood".^[18][5] The cartoonist David Low commented on the meeting that the audience was left with the feeling of antisemitism.^[18][39]

The Die Hards

After World War I, an informal group known as the Die Hards, who were united "by their national chauvinism, verging on xenophobia, and anti-Bolshevism", emerged. People associated with the group – such as Henry Percy (Duke of Northumberland), George Clarke (Lord Sydenham), and the MP's Ronald McNeill, Charles Yate, Charles Taylor Foxcroft, Joynson-Hixs and Henry Page Croft – believed in the conspiracy theory of a Jewish world effort to subvert Britain and its Empire.^[38] Jew baiting was known among them.^[40] The Die Hard ousted Edwin Montagu, the Secretary of State for India.^[38]

Antisemitism towards Jewish "aliens"

In February 1923, Charles Crook, Conservative MP for East Ham North, brought a motion to the House of Commons that it was "the utmost importance that a strict control shall be maintained over alien immigration".^[11] Crook wished to maintain the "racial integrity of Britain" and was seconded by the Conservative MP for Manchester Hulme, Joseph Nall, who particularly wanted to exclude the "alien revolutionary agitator".^[11] Crook and Nall were supported by Herbert Nield, Conservative MP for Ealing, in whose opinion Stepney had been "positively ruined by the incursion of these aliens", evidenced by the presence of advertisements and notices in Yiddish.^[11]

Antisemitism towards Jewish MP

During the 1922 general election, the sitting MP for Putney, the Conservative Samuel Samuel, was challenged by an independent Conservative candidate, Prescott Decre. Samuel saw this opposition by Decre and his supporters as "purely anti-Semitic".^[11]

Home Secretary Joynson-Hicks

After the Conservatives won the election, in November 1924, Baldwin made Joynson-Hicks Home Secretary (he was Home Secretary until 1929). David Cesarani ascribes this "sudden [and] unexpected" political ascent – which, "in the view of many at the time and since, [was] undeserved in terms of talent" – to the ideological affinity between Baldwin and Joynson-Hicks.^[38] Joynson-Hick's appointment worried the Jewish community, and not without reasons: his time as Home Secretary saw him in regular conflict with British Jews.^[38] Joynson-Hicks became known as "Mussolini Minor".^[38] His antisemitism caused him no harm during his time in office and he was emboldened in his antisemitism because he knew he had the general support of the Conservative party, "the large majority of whom are anti-alien in the sense of generally disliking foreigners, and despising anyone who does not happen to have been born in this country with a long English lineage to boot".^[38] More specifically, too, the Conservative party contained a "very noisy and active element" of antisemites.^[38] "[A]nti-Jewish currents were evident at the centre of politics, even present at the Cabinet table".^[38] Writing to a friend shortly after the 1924 election, Chaim Weizmann commented, "There is a new government ... the Cabinet contains two or three reactionaries, anti-Zionists and even antisemites".^[38] Within the government ranks, there was no "dissent against [Joynson-Hicks's] activity ... least of all from ... Baldwin".^[38] Cesarani says Baldwin chose the right-winger Joynson-Hicks for his government because he considered him "a desirable representative of elemental Toryism", a "representative figure" who would "enhance, rather than detract from, first, his electoral team, and second, his government".^[38]

Towards the start of his Home Secretary career Joynson-Hicks was visited by the right-wing organisation National Citizens Union.^[38] Joynson-Hicks told the group he would not allow a mass arrival of immigrants to Britain and that he would not hesitate to use his power to deport aliens.^[38] Under Joynson-Hicks, the Home Office became "the bane of the Jewish community" and "the situation of Jewish aliens had deteriorated seriously".^[38] Jews who had not become British citizens were deported for misdemeanors but, when they applied for citizenship, were met with long, unnecessary delays with kept them in the precarious position of alien.^[38] A group from the Board of Deputies of British Jews visited Joynson-Hicks at the Home Office in February 1925 to ask for an improvement to the regulations concerning aliens, "the establishment of immigration boards to judge cases of aliens forbidden to land by immigration officers, some modification of the Home Secretary's power of deportation [and an] to end the delays in naturalization". Joynson-Hicks dismissed their requests.^[38]

In November 1925, during parliamentary debates about the renewal of the Aliens Act, Joynson-Hicks was confronted about his actions by Labour MP John Scurr and Jewish Conservative MP Samuel Finburgh. Scurr said that the Aliens Act was being used "against one section of the community, and particularly against the poorer members of the Jewish community".^[38] Samuel Finburgh highlighted that Jews who "had been trying to get naturalized [were finding that] every possible obstruction was placed in their way".^[38] Joynson-Hicks responded by challenging Finburgh to give him a single example of when the Home Office had shown anti-Jewish bias, even though, Cesarani points out, Joynson-Hicks had entered and accepted a Home Office already discriminating against Jews in the applications for citizenship^[38][43] and, during his time in office, had received a memorandum on naturalization from John Pedder, the Home Office Principal Assistant Secretary, who regularly processed complaints from the Jewish community about Home Office action.^[38]

When asked by a Jewish journalist, Meir Grossman, about the "impression [that] has gain ground" that Joynson-Hicks was "in general antagonistic to the alien population" and, more particularly "in the exercising [of] his discretion as Home Secretary", was "discriminating against Jewish applicants" for citizenship, Joynson-Hicks replied that he was upset by the accusation of antisemitism, insisted that he was fair.^[38] However, his bias against the Jews was revealed when he went on to give the following example of the "chief test" which he would apply before granting citizenship:

The chief test ... is whether the applicant has, so far as can be judged, become an Englishman at heart and has completely identified himself with English interests. I will give you an example. If two brothers came to this country and one of them settles in a district where only aliens live, continues to speak his native language, marries a woman from his own country, sends his child to a school where only foreign children are kept, keeps his account in a foreign bank, employs only foreign labour, while the other marries and Englishwoman, sends his children to an English school, speaks English, employs British labour, keeps his accounts in a British bank, it is the second brother and not the first who will stand to obtain naturalization.^[38]

The anti-alien legislation, as described and used by Joynson-Hicks in this way, was antisemitic.^[38][44]

In the 1930s, the Conservative Home Secretary refused to meet a delegation from organisations combating antisemitism.^[10]

Winston Churchill's conspiracy theories

After the 1924 general election, Winston Churchill joined the ranks of the Conservatives (previously, he had been a Liberal but ran as a Constitutionalist during the election). Churchill was a Zionist and held both positive and antisemitic opinions of Jews;^[45][46] however, even some of his positive views were based on antisemitic stereotypes.^[5][45] For example, Churchill commented:^[5]

Some people like Jews and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are beyond question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.^{[note 3]}

In 1914 and 1920 Churchill had been accused of Jew baiting.^[47] After World War I, Churchill believed communism to be under the control of "international Jewry", which was "a world-wide conspiracy" dedicated to "the overthrow of civilization and the reconstruction of society".^[47] He expressed this in a 1920 Illustrated Sunday Herald article entitled "Zionism versus Bolshevism: A struggle for the soul of the Jewish people",^[47] which pitted good, Zionist Jews against the evil of Jewish controlled Bolshevism.^[45] In the article he cited favourably Nesta Helen Webster, the right-wing, antisemitic conspiracy theorist^[5] and was "tainted heavily with imagery" from the antisemitic fabricated text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.^[45] The Jewish Chronicle castigated Churchill for the article.^[45]

Churchill had also told Lloyd George that the Jews were "the main instigators of the ruin of the Empire", that they had played "a leading part in Bolshevik atrocities",^[47] that the presence of Jews in radical groups was due (in Lebzelter's summation of Churchill's view) "to inherent inclinations rooted in Jewish character and religion", and that a government should not have "too many" Jews in it.^[48] He said Britain need beware the "international Soviet of the Russian and Polish Jew" and that he had found evidence of a "very powerful" Jewish lobby in the country.^[47] His antisemitism was shared by his wife, Clementine, who wrote to him in 1931 that she could understand "American Anti-Semitic prejudice".^[47] It has been suggests that Churchill learned to keep his antisemitism quiet for political advantage.^[47][49]

Involvement with Oswald Mosley

Oswald Mosley founded the January Club, a social and dining club, in 1934 to attract Establishment support for his British Union of Fascists movement,^[50] which had increasing levels of antisemitism.^[51] Conservative MPs and peers who became members included John Erskine, William Montagu-Douglas-Scott, Stafford Northcote (4th Earl of Iddesleigh) and Edward Spears.^[12]

The Conservative led government of the 1930s responded with a lack of concern to Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews, looking on the "Nazi actions as an internal affair of a foreign country", even after the Nuremberg Laws were enacted in September 1935.^[52]

The Cliveden Set

The Cliveden Set was an upper class group of politically influential people who were "in favour of friendly relations with Nazi Germany".^[53] Prominent members included the Conservative MP Nancy Astor (Viscountess Astor), her husband Waldorf Astor (Viscount Astor),^[5] and Edward Wood (Lord Halifax). In 1936, Waldorf Astor attended the Nuremberg rally at Hitler's invitation.^[54] The same year, the Set wrote to Prime Minister Baldwin in support of Hitler's invasion of the Rhineland.^[55] Nancy Astor was "fiercely" antisemitic^[56] and "chronically suspicious of Jews", believing in the "anti-Semitic fantasy of Jewish power".^[5] She discouraged her husband from employing Jews at his newspaper, The Observer^[53] and suspected Jews were behind what she saw as "appalling anti-German propaganda" in New York newspapers.^[5] Astor would mimic Jewish businessmen.^[5] She made "frequent outbursts against Jews".^[5] When speaking to fellow Conservative MP Alan Graham in 1938, Astor's used much antisemitic language, including informing Graham, "Only a Jew like you would dare to be rude to me".^[53] She said of Chaim Weizmann that he was "the only decent Jew I have ever met".^[5] Nancy Astor believed that Nazism would solve "problems associated with Communism and the Jews".^[53] Writing to US ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, Astor advised that it would take more than Hitler giving "a rough time" to "the killers of Christ" before she would support launching "Armageddon to save them".^[57] According to David Feldman, director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London, the Viscountess blamed antisemitism on the Jews: at an event held by a wealthy Jewish family, she said, "Did I not after all believe there must be something in the Jews themselves that had bought them persecution throughout all the ages?"^[58] Lady Astor's son, Jakie Astor, said that "the Jews" were one of his mother's "dragons to slay".^[59] Astor received an endorsement from Churchill as she stood for election.^[54]

Parliamentary level

In the run up to World War II, "within the ranks of the governing Conservative party and its allies in the press (especially the pro-Nazi Daily Mail) there was an at-times ill-disguised noxious mix of snobbery and anti-Semitism".^[60]

Grassroots level

1945 general election and the Hampstead "anti-alien" petition

In August 1945 The Jewish Chronicle reported that "antisemitism on the part of [Conservative] party supporters had led many local political associations not to select Jewish candidates".^[10] During the election campaign of that year, Conservative candidate Wavell Wakefield said that Jewish refugees should be repatriated to solve London's housing crisis.^[84] During the campaign, too, the Daily Herald accused the Conservatives of making antisemitic remarks about Professor Harold Laski (political theorist of the London School of Economics and chair of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee).^[84] In 1945, the local Hampstead Conservative group began agitation against Jewish immigration.^[84]

In October 1945, an antisemitic petition was drawn up, with the help of Waldron Smithers's (Conservative MP for Orpington) Fighting Fund for Freedom, by residents of Hampstead, requesting "that aliens of Hampstead should be repatriated to assure men and women of the Forces should have accommodation upon their return" from World War II.^[84] The petition was signed by the antisemitic Conservative mayor of Hampstead Sydney A. Boyd and four of Hampstead's Conservative councillors, with the rest of the Conservative members of the council in favour of the petition.^[84] Hampstead's Conservative MP, Charles Challen, promised to give the petition his "unstinting support"^[84][36] and he asked a number of questions in the House of Commons on behalf of the petitioners over the following months.^[84] When the petition was complete, Conservative Councillor J. A. Hughes passed it to Challen who, "rather than repudiate the sponsors for their antisemitism", delivered it to Parliament.^[84]

Rural and urban antisemitism

Surveying the period from 1945, after the end of the Second World War, until 1988, Geoffrey Alderman says that "anti-Jewish prejudice was rampant in some Conservative associations in rural areas", and that "it was by no means confined to the countryside".^[19] At a civic reception held in 1945 to confer upon Sydney A. Boyd the status of Honorary Freeman of the Borough, the Conservative Mayor of Hampstead made a number of "cheap antisemitic gibes", including the suggestion that Swiss Cottage needed a "British Consul".^[84]

In 1946, Charles Challen led a protest against construction to turn a former Congregationalist church into a synagogue – it was "a thinly veiled anti-Semitic attack which effectively objected to appropriation of a formerly 'English' space by Jews".^[36] In October 1948, Douglas Peroni (former treasurer of the Hampstead branch of the British Union of Fascists and chair of the fascist Hampstead Literary Society, and leader of the Hampstead branch of Oswald Mosley's Union Movement) established "an active fascist group" within the local Hampstead parliament.^[84] The local Conservative group reached an accord with the fascists on the issue of Jewish immigration.^[84]

Anthony Eden (1955–1957)

In 1956, Keith Joseph was elected as an MP but he faced challenges from antisemitic forces within the Conservative party, which at the time had a "reputation for being unwelcoming to Jews". One of the people who interviewed him "for inclusion on the party's candidates list" commented, "As a Jew, I suppose he is not every constituency's man and, therefore, his placing would need care" and, indeed, Joseph faced "local mutterings against picking a Jew to represent the party". Within the parliamentary party, Joseph was considered "something of an outsider" and "lamentably exotic".^[85]

Harold Macmillan (1957–1963)

Edward Heath (1965–1975)

Parliamentary level

Grassroots level

John Major (1990–1997)

In 1997, during the Conservative leadership election of William Hague, Shadow Foreign Secretary Ann Widdecombe spoke out against Michael Howard, under whom she had served when he was Home Secretary. She remarked in the House of Commons that there is "something of the night" about Howard, who is of Romanian Jewish descent. This remark was considered by some to be antisemitic.^{[107][108][109][110]}

William Hague (1997–2001)

In 2000, four Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) members were expelled for making Nazi salutes.^[111] The New Statesman reported that a member of the OUCA committee at the university's 2001 Freshers' Fair greeted new students by saying, "Welcome to OUCA – the biggest political group for young people since the Hitler Youth".^[112] Another prominent member was dismissed from the Oxford University Student Union's executive for "marching up and down doing a Nazi salute".^[112]

Michael Howard (2002–2005)

In October 2004, a Conservative frontbencher said, "The trouble is that the [Conservative] party is being run by Michael Howard, Maurice Saatchi, and Oliver Letwin – and none of them really knows what it is to be English".^[113] Another report said "a junior frontbencher ... was musing about how the party was now being led. Saatchi, Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin were in charge: could they know how Englishmen felt?"^[114]

Parliamentary level

Local level

In April 2015, Conservative Derby local council candidate Gulzabeen Afsar was suspended for saying she could never support "the Jew" Ed Miliband.^[135][136]

Grassroots level

In 2011, one officer of the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) stated that some association members at weekly meetings sang a Nazi-themed song that included the lines "Dashing through the Reich / killing lots of Kike".^[111]

In October 2014 UCL Conservative Society was ordered by UCL's Student Union to apologise for creating a "toxic environment" in which discrimination, including antisemitism, was the culture. One accusation was that a member of the society said, "Jews own everything, we all know it's true. I wish I was Jewish, but my nose isn't long enough".^{[136][137][138]} The society denied the accusations.^[137] There is no evidence the Conservative party investigated the incidents.^[136]

Parliamentary level

Local level

Grassroots level

Boris Johnson

In January 2017, Johnson met with Steve Bannon. Johnson was accused by the Jewish Labour Movement of hypocrisy for meeting Bannon, someone who, according to the JLM, "enabled right wing antisemitism to seep into the mainstream", while also criticising Labour's approach to antisemitism.^[177]

Parliamentary level

During a parliamentary debate on Brexit on 3 September 2019, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who had been appointed to the Cabinet by Johnson, called two Jewish Conservative MPs, including Oliver Letwin,^[178] members of the Illuminati,^[179] which, according to Michael Berkowitz, professor of Modern Jewish History, who commented on the incident, is one of the "most poisonous antisemitic canards in all of history ... frequently used as justification for violence".^[180] Antony Lerman suggests that this is "dog-whistle antisemitism and at the same time a chase for votes to shamelessly exploit Jewish fears".^[181] Early the next month, Rees-Mogg was criticised for referring to Jewish financier and billionaire George Soros as "the remoaner funder-in-chief". This was seen by some as a perpetuation of an antisemitic conspiracy theory^[178] and was condemned by Lord Alf Dubs as a comment "straight from the far-right's antisemitic playbook".^[182]

In 2019, Crispin Blunt MP accused the Chief Rabbi of Manchester of demanding "special status" for Britain's Jews. Blunt was later rebuked by the Jewish Leadership Council, which stated he should "clarify if he supports the concept of freedom of religion, a cornerstone of liberal democracy".^[183]

In 2019, the Conservative MP for Hastings and Rye, Sally-Ann Hart, was under investigation by the Conservative Party for antisemitism and Islamophobia. Hart "liked" a Nazi phrase on Facebook, "shared" an antisemitic slur and an antisemitic video.^{[184][185][186][187]} In July of the following year, the Jewish Chronicle reported that there was growing concern from antiracism organisations and the Board of Deputies that the Conservative Party were inactive over the investigation.^[185] In August, Hart stated that the investigation into the allegations over her social media posts had concluded and that she was "not found to be anti-Semitic, Islamophobic or anything else", although she had attended social media training.^[188]

The MP for Ashfield, Lee Anderson, was reported to be under investigation by the Conservative party for antisemitism in December 2019.^[189] As with the investigation into Hart, there was growing concern that the Conservative Party were inactive over the investigation into Anderson.^[185] In January 2021, Anderson stated to the Jewish Chronicle that as "no evidence was provided to substantiate the claims made against [him] the Conservative Party investigation [had] concluded".^[190] Hart and Anderson received training on antisemitism.^[190] No official report was released about the investigations.^[191]

In February 2020, John Bercow, the Jewish former Speaker of the House of Commons and Conservative MP, claimed that he had experienced "subtle" antisemitism from members of his own Conservative Party, and had never experienced any antisemitism from Labour MPs.^[192] Bercow went on to join the Labour Party in 2021.

In November 2020, following an interim report on the connections between colonialism and properties now in the care of the National Trust, including links with historic slavery, a letter to The Telegraph signed by 28 Conservative Parliamentarians^{[note 4]} as the "Common Sense Group" accused the National Trust of being "coloured by cultural Marxist dogma, colloquially known as the 'woke agenda'",^[193] terminology described by the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, Jewish Council for Racial Equality, anti-racist charity Hope Not Hate and the Campaign Against Antisemitism as antisemitic.^{[191][194][195]} Two of the letter's signatories – Sally-Ann Hart and Lee Anderson – were already under investigation for antisemitism.^[191]

The Board of Deputies of British Jews called on the Conservatives to discipline Daniel Kawczynski after the MP spoke at a far-right conference^[196] alongside Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán, Giorgia Meloni from the Brothers of Italy party, closely associated with Mussolini's fascism,^[197] Ryszard Legutko, a Polish Law and Justice MEP, and Marion Maréchal of the Le Pen family, a politician in France's National Rally.^[198] At the conference, Kawczynski praised Orbán and Matteo Salvini.^[199] The Board of Deputies and the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism asked the Conservative Party to investigate Kawczynski's appearance at the conference.^[198] Muslim Council of Britain spokesperson Miqdaad Versi said, "It is unacceptable that anyone holding the position of MP speaks at a nationalist conference alongside Islamophobes and antisemites," and said it was "disturbing" that the Conservative Party whip appeared to have known the MP was going to speak at the conference but chose to take no action.^[200] Kawczynski's plan to attend the conference had been reported on prior to the event, shadow communities secretary Andrew Gwynne commenting, "It's disgraceful that just days after Holocaust Memorial Day Daniel Kawczynski is planning to share a platform with antisemites, Islamophobes and homophobes".^[201] Jewish journalist Rivkah Brown said that "Kawczynski is a symptom of a disease endemic within British Conservatism,"^[199] and The Scotsman columnist Euan McColm said the failure of the Conservative Party to discipline Kawczynski showed they were not serious about antisemitism.^[196]

In May 2021, the Board of Deputies raised concerns "regarding antisemitic rhetoric, Holocaust revisionism and a number of other issues with Downing Street" ahead of a meeting Boris Johnson hosted with Hungarian leader Viktor Orban.^[202] MP Alex Sobel said, "Viktor Orbán is a renowned antisemite, fuelled violence against the Roma, clamps down on the LGBT and Muslim Communities. He suppresses basic democratic norms and press freedom. However Boris Johnson is rolling out the red carpet. MPs of all parties should be calling this out."^[203]

In December 2021, the Board of Deputies criticised MP Marcus Fysh for comparing proposed COVID-19 regulations to Nazi policies. President of the Board Marie van der Zyl said, "It is completely unacceptable to compare the proposed vaccine passports with Nazi Germany. We urge people, particularly those in positions of authority, to avoid these highly inappropriate comparisons". Other MPs also criticised Fysh, including Jewish MP Margaret Hodge.^[204]

Parliamentary candidates

In 2019 Ryan Houghton, who was standing in the Aberdeen North constituency for the 2019 general election, was suspended for alleged anti-semitic comments made in 2012 online in a free speech debate. Houghton discussed freedom of speech and comments made by Holocaust denier David Irving.^[210] Houghton retained the Conservative candidacy for Aberdeen North after his suspension due to statutory rules regarding ballot papers.^[211] Houghton was subsequently cleared by an independent investigation commissioned by the Scottish Conservative Party and readmitted with no further sanction.^[212]

Amjad Bashir, who was standing in the Leeds North East constituency for the 2019 general election, was suspended from the Conservative Party after The Jewish Chronicle reported on his claim that British Jews who visited Israel were returning as "brainwashed extremists". Bashir retained the Conservative candidacy for Leeds North East after his suspension.^[213] Richard Short, candidate for St Helens South and Whiston, questioned on Twitter whether journalist Melanie Phillips, who appeared on the BBC's Question Time, was being more loyal to Israel or Britain.^[214]

Local level

Mohammad Aslam, councillor for the Bradley ward in Pendle, shared a post saying the "Gaza massacre is the price of a Jewish state". He further claimed in an article that the then Labour MP, Ruth Smeeth, was "funded by [the] Israel lobby". Another post Aslam shared – later deleted, included the image of a bloodied child and a description of the Israeli government's actions as "Radical Jewish Terrorism".^[215]

During the Borehamwood Kenilworth ward byelection in 2020, Conservative councillors ran a campaign against Dan Ozarow that led to antisemitic attacks on the Labour candidate and his family.^[216] Two years later, following an investigation by Conservative Campaign Headquarters, five Tory councillors were disciplined for a hate campaign against Ozarow.^[217] The councillors were sent on a training course. Ozarow stated that he did not believe the Conservative Party were taking antisemitism seriously, calling the sanctions on the councillors "risible", while the local Conservative Association claimed Ozarow's allegations against the councillors were "politically motivated".^[218]

In July 2020, Robert (Bob) Caserta, a Conservative councillor in Bury, remarked that there were "litter grot spots" in Sedgley ward, home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the UK, and said that "it would be difficult communicating with residents unless you are able to speak Hebrew". A complaint was made that Caserta had used discriminatory language, and the council's standards sub-committee ruled that he had used "disrespectful and wholly inappropriate" language.^[219][220] Caserta had the whip removed but was later reinstated.^[221]

Sharon Thomason, selected as Conservative candidate for Warrington Borough Council in the 2021 election, was removed from standing after publicity of antisemitic comments she made about Labour MP Charlotte Nichols. The chair of Warrington Conservatives, Wendy Maisey, who had previously stood against Nichols in Parliamentary elections, was also involved in some of the inflammatory comments.^[222] In a statement in early February 2021, MP Angela Rayner, Labour's deputy leader and party chair, said, "Given Sharon Thomason made these comments before she was selected as a candidate, and this statement was raised with the chair of the local Conservative Association in Warrington before she was selected, the Conservative Party must explain why the promotion of Nazi ideology almost a year ago does not prevent someone from being selected as a Tory candidate".^[223] A few months later, Maisey stood in the election for Warrington Borough Council and was elected.^[224]

Tim Wills, Conservative councillor in Worthing, was suspended from the party in October 2021 for his support of the antisemitic and Neo-Nazi organisation Patriotic Alternative.^[225][226]

Ahead of the 2022 local elections, the Jewish Representative Council (JRC) of Greater Manchester and Region asked the Bury Conservative Party Association to call out allegedly antisemitic social media comments made by their candidates^[227] and wrote to the chair of the Conservative Party demanding an investigation into the local Association for what it described as the "recurring issue [of] prospective councillors posting racist content directed at the Jewish community".^[228] The JRC also expressed concerns about the promotion of a councillor, Shahbaz Mahmood Arif, who shared an article claiming a "pro-Israel lobbyist" donated to Keir Starmer's Labour leadership bid.^[229] The Campaign Against Antisemitism also wrote to the Conservative Party about "urgent questions about the local association".^[230] The local Association suspended two of its candidates (Sham Raja Akhtar and Shafqat Mahmood) accused of antisemitism^[227] and stood by a third (Mazhar Aslam).^[231] Shadman Zaman, another prospective candidate, was suspended from the party after refusing to delete social media posts offering condolences to Israel following a terrorist attack.^[232] One of the suspended members, Sham Raja, was confirmed as deputy chair of the party in Manchester.^[233]

Bias against "Jewish names"

A 2020 LSE study, measured local government officials' responsiveness to email correspondence from constituents with "stereotypically Muslim or Jewish names". Lee Crawfurd and Ukasha Ramli found both "Labour and Conservative councillors showed equal bias towards the two".^[234]