Jacob Rees-Mogg accused of antisemitism after George Soros comments

There have been calls for Jacob Rees-Mogg to be sacked after comments about George Soros were deemed antisemitic by critics.

On Thursday, MP Valerie Vaz remarked that hedge fund manager Crispin Odey “made £220m overnight as Sterling slumped after the 2016 referendum result.” Rees-Mogg responded with the following:

One of the major funders allegedly of the Remain campaign, the Remoaner funder-in-chief, is one George Soros, who made a billion pounds when Sterling crashed out of the exchange rate mechanism, which is five times as much as Mr Odey has made.

Soros, who lived through the Nazi occupation of Hungary, has frequently been the subject of antisemitic conspiracy theories and the Labour MP Lord Alf Dubs was unimpressed. In a statement, he said:

Those are the same arguments that were used against me and other Jewish people coming here 80 years ago.

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s comments are straight from the far right’s antisemitic playbook. Boris Johnson must condemn his remarks about a Holocaust survivor and remove him from his Cabinet.

Like George Soros, I fled Nazi persecution, and like me, George Soros campaigns for European countries to give sanctuary to refugees today, just as I was given refuge as a child in 1939.

Boris Johnson and his government don’t want vulnerable people who they see as being different to them coming to our country. 

It remains to be seen if Rees-Mogg will be punished for these comments but people on Twitter were quick to condemn the Tory MP.

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