Antisemitism In The UK Conservative Party

Since the founding of the Conservative Party in 1834, there have been a wide variety of both proven and unproven antisemitic accusations levelled at Conservative party leaders and other party figures.

Robert Peel leadership (1834–1846)

In 1830, Robert Peel spoke in Parliament in opposition to the Bill to remove civil disabilities from Jews. 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.Harold Bloom, ''Charles Dickens'' (New York: Chelsea House, 2013) Peel opposed 'unchristianising 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.

Edward Smith-Stanley leadership (1846–1868)

Prior to 1858, Jews were not allowed to become Members of Parliament (MPs) unless they were Christian, such as Benjamin Disraeli who was baptized as a child. This changed in 1858, with the Jews Relief Act, which removed legislative barriers to Jews entering Parliament.R. Philpot, ' (22/02/18) on The Times of Israel 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.
* George Bankes "expressed his horror at the possibility of seeing a Jew Premier in Parliament".
* 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".
* 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.
* 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.
* Charles Newdigate Newdegate claimed that "the wealth of one distinguished Jew had been liberally lavished to obtain petitions in favour of the Bill" and that behind the calls for Jewish Emancipation was a "Talmudic conspiracy… to destroy the free constitution and religion of Protestant Englishmen".
* 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".
* Philip Stanhope was of the opinion that "Jewish emancipation would lower the tone of religious opinion in England".
* 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".
* Archibald Douglas said that Jews "were unfortunately actuated by a love of money, which was highly discreditable".
* Robert Inglis argued that Jews were "a separate nation with a separate creed".
* Henry Ker Seymer, Richard Spooner, Frederic Thesiger, Alexander Raphael, Francis Scott, Henry Goulburn, Joseph Napier,Charles Egan, ''The status of the Jews in England'' (London: 1848) Cropley Ashley-Cooper (Lord Ashley), and Henry Home-Drummond, also opposed the bill and the inclusion of Jews.

Benjamin Disraeli leadership (1868–1881)

Benjamin Disraeli endured prejudice from some Conservatives throughout his political career. Disraeli was described by one backbench Conservative, Sir Rainald Knightley, as "that hellish Jew", and by some others simply as "the Jew". Edward Smith-Stanley (Earl of Derby) criticised Disraeli for holding beliefs he considered un-English.David Cesarani, ''Disraeli: The Novel Politician'' (Yale University Press, 2016). Another Conservative politician said of him, "he bears the mark of the Jew strongly about him... He is evidently clever but superlatively vulgar". Writing to his sister, Austen Chamberlain said Disraeli was an "English patriot utnot an Englishman".Harry Defries, ''Conservative Party Attitudes to Jews 1900-1950'' (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013)

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

Organized antisemitism in the United Kingdom can be traced to the proto-fascist paramilitary group, the British Brothers' League (BBL),David Osler, '' (04/08/14) on Left Foot Forward which was founded in 1901 by members of the Conservative Party,D. Renton, ''Fascism, Anti-Fascism and Britain in the 1940s'' (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000)D. Glover, ''Literature, Immigration, and Diaspora in Fin-de-Siècle England: A Cultural History of the 1905 Aliens Act'' (CUP, 2012) including MPs Howard Vincent and William Evans-Gordon, and drew its membership from sections of the Conservative Party. The BBL, the "largest and best organised of all the anti-alien groups" of its time was "Conservative-led and... Conservative-dominated". It sought to pressure the government into stopping the arrival of poor Jews into Britain.William I. Brustein, ''Roots of Hate: Anti-Semitism in Europe Before the Holocaust'' (CUP, 2003) It was successful in that its pressure was instrumental in persuading parliament to pass the 1905 Aliens Act.

William Evans-Gordon was elected to parliament in 1900 on an anti-alien platformGeoffrey Alderman, ''Modern British Jewry'' (OUP, 1998) and began campaigning for changes to the government's immigration policies in his first year of office.Lara Trubowitz, ''Civil Antisemitism, Modernism, and British Culture, 1902–1939'' (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) 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. Within their discourse, "immigrant" and "alien" often meant "Jew". With four Conservative MPs in support at its inaugural meeting, the BBL was founded on 9 May 1901. 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. The Londoners' League worked with the BBL at a lower tierJohn Solomos, ''Race and Racism in Britain'' 2nd edn (London: Macmillan, 1993) 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. The BBL stirred up popular racism against Jewish immigrants who had moved to the city to find refuge because they had been displaced by pogroms in their home countries.

On the tier above the BBL was the Parliamentary Alien Immigration Committee. The Committee was founded in August 1901 and comprised all the East End MPs (except the Liberal Party MP for Whitechapel, Stuart M. Samuel). Based on the same ideas as those of the BBL, Evans-Gordon formed the Committee to work within Parliament.J. A. Cloake and M. R. Tudor, ''Multicultural Britain'' (OUP, 2001) As a parliamentary pressure group, it urged the government to pass restrictive immigration controls.

Arthur Balfour leadership (1902–1911)

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 chairNick Toczek, ''Haters, Baiters and Would-Be Dictators: Anti-Semitism and the UK Far Right'' (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016) and a "key member", submitting reports to the Commission. The Royal Commission was a "Parliamentary platform against Jewish migrants"D. Glover, 'Imperial Zion: Israel Zangwill and the English Origins of Territorialism' in E. Bar-Yosef and N. Valman (eds), The Jew' in Late-Victorian and Edwardian Culture: Between the East End and East Africa'' (Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and concerned itself almost entirely with Jews.Harold Pollins, '' on History Today (originally published in ''History Today'' Volume 35 Issue 7 July 1985) Sympathies for the BBL "stretched into the secretaryship of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration". In February 1903, the antisemiticRichard Thurlow, ''Fascism in Britain: A History, 1918-1985'' (Basil Blackwell, 1987) p. 108 Immigration Reform Association (IRA) was established with Richard Hely-Hutchinson (Earl of Donoughmore) as president – a "respectable" group 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. Working with Harry F. Smith, a Conservative Party agent, the IRA organised a major demonstration in November 1903, with the BBL providing a procession.

In 1903, Evans-Gordon wrote ''The Alien Immigrant''Colin Holmes, ''Anti-Semitism in British Society, 1876-1939'' (London: Routledge, 2016) (which was an expansion of the reports he had made to the Royal Commission) with the aim of influencing public opinion on immigration. 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", and that the "Hebrew colony ... unlike any other alien colony in reat 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".

The Royal Commission on Alien Immigration reported its findings in August 1903, which would inform the Aliens Act of 1905, Colin Holmes, 'British Brothers League' in Richard S. Levy (ed.), ''Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution'' Volume 1: A-K (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005) recommending strong, restrictive laws against alien entry into Britain. 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".G. F. Abbott, ''Israel in Europe'' (London: Macmillan, 1907) Within the bill, "alien" was "an implicit reference to 'the Jew"'. Evans-Gordon was a primary author of the 1904 immigration bill.

In 1905, the revised bill passed into law. Evans-Gordon's speeches were "the primary catalyst for the final passage of the 1905 Act". He became known as the "father of the Aliens Bill". 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. The BBL had succeeded: it largely was responsible, along with its supporting MPs, for the passing of the 1905 Aliens Act.

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.David Cesarani, 'The Anti-Jewish Career of Sir William Joynson-Hicks, Cabinet Minister' in ''Journal of Contemporary History'' Vol. 24, No. 3 (Jul. 1989) 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". 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".

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.

After World War I, Joynson-Hicks questioned the trustworthiness of Ango-Jewish MPs and civil servants. He spoke out against Sir Herbert Samuel when he was appointed High Commissioner for Palestine. Joyson-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. 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''. Joyson-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. At some point in his career, he commented that the Jewish immigrants to Palestine were "the sweepings of the ghettos of Central Europe". He was also involved in the hunt for "aliens", which led to many Russian Jews being expelled from Britain.

Bonar Law leadership (1911–1921)

National League for Clean Government

The National League for Clean Government was a political reform movement, created partly in response to the Marconi scandal, that directed antisemitism towards the Jewish plutocracy, which it believed was conspiring to subvert British politics.Jay P. Corrin, ''Catholic Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democracy'' (University of Notre Dame Press, 2002) A number of its members and supporters were antisemites, including Conservative MP Rowland Hunt. 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". The cartoonist David Low commented on the meeting that the audience was left with the feeling of antisemitism.

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. Jew baiting was known among them. The Die Hard ousted Edwin Montagu, the Secretary of State for India.

Bonar Law leadership (1922–1923)

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". 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". 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.

Antisemitism towards Jewish MP

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

Stanley Baldwin leadership (1923–1937)

Stanley Baldwin had strong ties to Joynson-Hicks, which can be seen throughout their political careers together – each vouched for the other in election campaigns; Joynson-Hicks was instrumental in the "destruction of the coalition and the old Conservative leadership which opened the way to Bonar Law and then Baldwin" and supported Baldwin in the passing of policy; they worked together in the Treasury; Baldwin promoted Joynson-Hicks to Home Secretary; and Joynson-Hicks stood by Baldwin in defeat. According to David Cesarani, Baldwin and Joynson-Hicks "shared a discourse about England and Englishness" that included a definition of "Englishness" based around "a common language, heritage and racial character", and, on the other side of the coin, a dislike of other "races", seen as "less illustrious ..., other and 'alien'."

Baldwin became prime minister in 1923 and gave Joynson-Hicks a place in the Cabinet as Financial Secretary to the Treasury. This was "noted by the Zionist press with anxiety". In August 1923 he became Health Minister. There were also causes for concern for Anglo-Jewry in the way Baldwin"s government came to power again in the 1924 general election. That election saw an "exceptionally dirty campaign" (most notoriously known for the Zinoviev letter, a forgery purportedly written by the Jewish head of the Communist International in Moscow, published by the ''Daily Mail'' to turn the electorate against the Labour party), and the Conservative campaign had a stream of anti-Jewish, anti-alienism underlying it. Now and at other times in this period, "anti-Jewish feeling was mobilized under the guise of anti-alienism, anti-Zionism and anti-Bolshevism by mainstream political figures". During the campaign, Baldwin and other Conservatives used the threat of aliens as one of their platforms. In their campaigning, the term "aliens" was "used as a code for Jews".

In speeches like his party political broadcast on 16 October, Baldwin gave the all-clear to Joynson-Hicks and other extremists in the Conservative party who had been engaged in xenophobic campaigning for decades. He said, "we cannot afford the luxury of academic socialists or revolutionary agitation ... I think its high time somebody said to Russia "Hands off England" ... I want to examine the laws and regulations as to entry of aliens into this country, for in these days no alien should be substituted for one of our own people when we have not enough work at home to go around". Baldwin's allies could now exploit prejudices against foreigners, "aliens" and "agitators". For Hoynson-Hicks, the concept of "alien" and "communist" blended, and throughout his political career his "anti-alienism, his anti-Zionism, ndhis anti-communism all brought him into conflict with the Jews".

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 ndunexpected" political ascent – which, "in the view of many at the time and since, asundeserved in terms of talent" – to the ideological affinity between Baldwin and Hoynson-Hicks. 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. Joynson-Hicks became known as "Mussolini Minor". 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". More specifically, too, the Conservative party contained a "very noisy and active element" of antisemites. " ti-Jewish currents were evident at the centre of politics, even present at the Cabinet table". 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 anti-semites". Within the government ranks, there was no "dissent against oynson-Hicks'sactivity ... least of all from ... Baldwin". 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".

Towards the start of his Home Secretary career Joynson-Hicks was visited by the right-wing organisation the National Citizens Union. 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. Under Joynson-Hicks, the Home Office became "the bane of the Jewish community" and "the situation of Jewish aliens had deteriorated seriously". 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. 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 nd anto end the delays in naturalization". Joynson-Hicks dismissed their requests.

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". Samuel Finburgh highlighted that Jews who "had been trying to get naturalized ere finding thatevery possible obstruction was placed in their way". 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 citizenshipGeoffrey Alderman, ''Modern British Jewry'' (OUP, 1998) 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.

When asked by a Jewish journalist, Meir Grossman, about the "impression hathas gain ground" that Joynson-Hicks was "in general antagonistic to the alien population" and, more particularly "in the exercising fhis 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. 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.

The anti-alien legislation, as described and used by Joynson-Hicks in this way, was antisemitic.

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

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;Tom Heyden, '' (25/01/15) on BBC News however, even some of his positive views were based on antisemitic stereotypes. For example, Churchill commented:

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.

In 1914 and 1920 Churchill had been accused of Jew baiting. 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". He expressed this in a 1920 ''Illustrated Sunday Herald'' article entitled "Zionism versus Bolshevism: A struggle for the soul of the Jewish people", which pitted good, Zionist Jews against the evil of Jewish controlled Bolshevism. In the article he cited favourably Nesta Helen Webster, the right-wing, antisemitic conspiracy theorist and was "tainted heavily with imagery" from the antisemitic fabricated text ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion''. The ''Jewish Chronicle'' castigated Churchill for the article.

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",Michael J. Cohen, ''Churchill and the Jews, 1900-1948'' 2nd edn (London: Routledge, 2013) 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. 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. His antisemitism was shared by his wife, Clementine, who wrote to him in 1931 that she could understand "American Anti-Semitic prejudice". It has been suggests that Churchill learned to keep his antisemitism quiet for political advantage.

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,Richard Thurlow, 'State Management of the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s' in Mike Cronin (ed.), ''The Failure of British Fascism: The Far Right and the Fight for Political Recognition'' (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996) which had increasing levels of antisemitism.R. Philpot, '' (24/10/17) on ''The Times of Israel'' Conservative MPs and peers who became members included John Erskine, William Montagu-Douglas-Scott, Stafford Northcote (4th Earl of Iddesleigh) and Edward Spears.

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.

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".E. Black, '' (27/11/19) on Plymouth Live Prominent members included the Conservative MP Nancy Astor (Viscountess Astor), her husband Waldord Astor (Viscount Astor), and Edward Wood (Lord Halifax). In 1936, Waldorf Astor attended the Nuremberg rally at Hitler's invitation.Madge Dresser, 'Appalling or admirable? The complex legacy of Bristol's first woman MP' in ''The Bristol Cable'' Issue 21 (Oct.-Dec. 2019) The same year, the Set wrote to Prime Minister Baldwin in support of Hitler's invasion of the Rhineland. Nancy Astor was "fiercely" antisemitic and "chronically suspicious of Jews", believing in the "anti-Semitic fantasy of Jewish power". She discouraged her husband from employing Jews at his newspaper, ''The Observer'' and suspected Jews were behind what she saw as "appalling anti-German propaganda" in New York newspapers. Astor would mimic Jewish businessmen. She made "frequent outbursts against Jews". 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". She said of Chaim Weizmann that he was "the only decent Jew I have ever met". Nancy Astor believed that Nazism would solve "problems associated with Communism and the Jews". 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". 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?" Lady Astor's son, Jakie Astor, said that "the Jews" were one of his mother's "dragons to slay". Astor received an endorsement from Churchill as she stood for election.

Neville Chamberlain leadership (1937–1940)

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".

Chamberlain's antisemitism and ''Truth''

Conservative leader and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had a dislike for the Jews. According to R. B. Cockett, "it is in the pages of ''Truth'' that Chamberlain's ''real'' political sympathies and prejudices can be found; political sympathies that were often in striking contrast to the official political postures adopted by his own government". The Conservative newspaper ''Truth'', secretly bought and overseen by Chamberlain's friend and former MI5 officer Joseph Ball (now director of the Conservative research department), had been obtained as an attempt "by a caucus within heBritish government to influence events anonymously via the control of a newspaper". The paper was a "Conservative propaganda organ", pro-Chamberlain, antisemitic and racist.R. B. Cockett, 'Ball, Chamberlain and Truth' in ''The Historical Journal'' Vol. 33, No. 1 (Mar. 1990) The paper praised Hitler and attacked Chamberlain's enemies, "a collection of persons and ideologies that would have closely resembled any hate-list that Hitler might have cared to draw up. Chief among these were the Bolsheviks/Communists and Jews". Both ''Truth'' and Chamberlain accused people who questioned Chamberlain's attempts at appeasement with Nazi Germany of being "unEnglish", "Jewish/Communist traitor of the true English cause", or having been misled by "Jewish-Communist propaganda". The ''Daily Mirror'', which was a critic of Chamberlain, was accused in ''Truth'' of being manipulated by a secret, subversive Jewish interest; and Fleet Street at large was said to be a "Jew-infested sink", led by the Jewish publisher Victor Gollancz.

''Truth'' also attacked Jewish figures directly. George Strauss MP were accused of cowardice because they did not join the armed forces during World War I (''Truth'' paid Strauss damages for this libel), and ''Truth'' carried out an antisemitic character assassination on Leslie Hore-Belisha after he resigned from office as Minister of War in 1940 at Chamberlain's request. The paper had been attacking Hore-Belisha since 1937.

''Truth'' saw the potential war with Germany to be a "Jewish war", fought in Jewish interests, which it opposed. It became the voice of those of had argued with Chamberlain for appeasement with Nazi Germany. It employed Major-General J. F. C. Fuller (Oswald Mosley's former military adviser), who wrote against claims that the Germans were using concentration camps. The paper ignored the antisemitic pogroms carried out by the Germans in November 1938. In November 1938, after the Kristallnacht, Chamberlain wrote to his sister, saying, "No doubt the Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself; but that is not sufficient to explain the Pogrom".

Churchill's ''Liberty'' article

In June 1937, Churchill was commissioned to write an article for the American magazine ''Liberty'' on the so-called Jewish problem.Michael J Cohen, ''Britain's Moment in Palestine: Retrospect and Perspectives, 1917-1948'' (Routledge, 2014) Churchill gave his ghostwriter Adam Marshall Diston some suggestions on what to write and then Diston ghostwrote the article. Churchill made some handwritten marks on the draftTim Butcher, '' (12/03/07) on ''The Daily Telegraph'' and the article was sent for typing without correction. The article repeated the popular idea that Jews brought antisemitism on themselves by remaining distanced and separate from the rest of society, and it repeated offensive stereotypes of Shylock and his "pound of flesh", Jewish usurers, and " Hebrew bloodsuckers". In part, the article, entitled "How the Jews can Combat Persecution", said:

The Jew in England is a representative of his race. Every Jewish money-lender recalls Shylock and the idea of the Jews as usurers. And you cannot reasonably expect a struggling clerk or shopkeeper, paying forty or fifty per cent interest on borrowed money to a "Hebrew bloodsucker" to reflect that, throughout long centuries, almost every other way of life was closed to the Jews; or that there are native English moneylenders who insist, just as implacably, upon their "pound of flesh".

In the end the article was not published, despite Churchill's repeated efforts to sell it. According to Richard Toye, "Churchill was entirely happy to put the article out in his own name and thus take responsibility for the views it expressed".Richard Toye, letter to the editor (17/03/07) in The Times In 1940, Churchill declined an offer to have the article published, his office stating that it would be "inadvisable to publish the article ... at the present time".Richard Toye, ''Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals for Greatness'' (London: Pan Books, 2007)

Archibald Maule Ramsay MP and the Right Club

On 13 January 1938, Archibald Maule Ramsay, the Unionist MP for Peebles and Southern Midlothian, gave a speech to the Arbroath Business Club in which he observed that Adolf Hitler's antipathy to Jews arose from his knowledge "that the real power behind the Third International is a group of revolutionary Jews". His United Christian Front (formed in 1937) aimed to combat attacks on Christianity from "the Red Menace" – he believed that Bolshevism was Jewish. Ramsey was influenced and made use of ''The Rulers of Russia'' by a Roman Catholic priest from Ireland, Father Denis Fahey, which contended that of 59 members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1935, 56 were Jews, and the remaining three were married to Jews. Ramsay was sympathetic to Nazi Germany: in September, he wrote to ''The Times'' to defend the right of the pro-German Sudetenland to self-determination. On 15 November 1938, Ramsay was invited to a luncheon party at the German Embassy in London, where he met British sympathisers with Nazi Germany, including Barry Domvile. In December he introduced a Private Member"s Bill called the "Companies Act (1929) Amendment Bill", which would require shares in news agencies and newspapers to be held openly and not through nominees. In his speech promoting the Bill, Ramsay said the press was being manipulated and controlled by "international financiers" based in New York City who wanted to "thrust this country into a war".
 
In December 1938, ''The Fascist'' (journal of the Imperial Fascist League) declared that Ramsay had "become Jew-wise". On 10 January 1939, Ismay Ramsay, Archibald's wife, gave another speech to the Arbroath Business Club, at which she claimed the national press was "largely under Jewish control", that "an international group of Jews ... were behind world revolution in every single country" and defended Hitler's antisemitism, saying he "must ... have had his reasons for what he did". The speech was reported in the local newspaper and attracted the attention of the rabbi of the Edinburgh Hebrew Congregation, Dr Salis Daiches, who wrote to ''The Scotsman'' challenging Mrs Ramsay to produce evidence. Ramsay wrote on her behalf citing Father Fahey's booklet, and the resulting correspondence lasted for nearly a monthKenneth Roy, ''The Invisible Spirit: A Life of Post-War Scotland 1945-75'' 2nd edn (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2014) – including a letter from 11 Ministers of the Church of Scotland in the County of Peebles repudiating the views of their MP. Some members of Ramsay's local Conservative Association in Peebles were not pleased by what they considered negative publicity; however, the Peebles Conservative Association expressed its "solidarity and unanimity" with Ramsay and he received an "enthusiastic welcome" at local Conservative meetings. On 27 April he spoke to a branch of the (antisemitic) Nordic League (of which he was a memberGavin Bowd, ''Fascist Scotland'' (Birlinn, 2013)) in Kilburn, attacking Neville Chamberlain for introducing conscription "at the instigation of the Jews" and claiming that the Conservative Party "relies on ... Jew money".
 
In May 1939, Ramsay set up the Right Club, to fight so-called Judeo-Bolshevism. Ramsay said that "The main objective f the Right Clubwas to oppose and expose the activities of organised Jewry". The logo of the Right Club, seen on its badge, was of an eagle killing a snake with the initials P.J. (which stood for "Perish Judah"). Members of the Right Club included well-known antisemites like William Joyce (AKA Lord Haw-Haw),Description of 'Ramsay Archibald Henry Maule Captain 1894 politician, Red Book: Membership list of Captain Ramsay's Right Club, 1939. Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide. GB 1556 WL 1369' on the Archives Hub website, , (date accessed :03/02/2019) Arnold Leese, A. K. Chesterton (who had left Mosley's BUF in 1933 because Mosley had not been antisemitic enough for him), along with Conservative peers and politicians, like James Graham (at the time, Marquess of Graham), William Forbes-Sempill (Lord Sempill), David Freeman-Mitford (Lord Redesdale), Gerard Wallop (Lord Lymington), and John Hamilton Mackie. At its early meetings, Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington) (one of Churchill's friends) took the chair. The Right Club held closed meetings in the House of Commons. Ramsay distributed copies of the antisemitic periodical ''The Truth'' to MPs. The paper was a Conservative Party publication and was edited by an antisemite.
 
During the time Ramsay was launching the Right Club, he spoke at a meeting of the Nordic League at the Wigmore Hall at which a reporter from the ''Daily Worker'' was present and reported Ramsay as saying that they needed to end Jewish control, "and if we don't do it constitutionally, we'll do it with steel" – a statement greeted with wild applause. The popular magazine ''John Bull'' picked up on the report and challenged Ramsay to contradict it or explain himself. Ramsay's local constituency newspaper, the ''Peeblesshire Advertiser'', made the same challenge and Ramsay responded by admitting he had made the speech, citing the fact that three halls had refused to host the meeting as evidence of Jewish control.
 
On the second day of the Second World War, 4 September 1939, Ramsay sat in the library of the House of Commons and, on House of Commons headed notepaper, write a parody of ''Land of Hope and Glory'', which contained the following lines:

Land of dope and Jewry
Land that once was free
All the Jew boys praise thee
While they plunder thee ...
Land of Jewish finance
Fooled by Jewish lies
In press and books and movies
While our birthright dies.

 
One 12 September 1939, Hugh Grosvenor (Duke of Westminster) read out an antisemitic anti-war statement at one of the Right Club's meetings. The statement said that the war (later known as the Second World War) was "part of a Jewish and Masonic plot to destroy Christian civilization". The statement was circulated to a number of Cabinet ministers, including Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain. The following day, after several ministers complained to Churchill about the Duke of Westminster's "indiscretion", Churchill wrote a note to the Duke, but did not address the antisemitic elements of speech; rather, Churchill's concern was with the Duke's opposition to the war.
 
The Right Club spent the so-called Phoney War period at the start of the Second World War distributing propaganda in the form of leaflets and "sticky-backs" (adhesive labels containing slogans), with Ramsay later explaining that he wanted "to maintain the atmosphere in which the "Phoney War", as it was called, might be converted into an honourable negotiated peace". In addition to Ramsay's ''Land of dope and Jewry'' rhyme, the slogans included "War destroys workers" and "This is a Jews' War". Some of the leaflets asserted "the stark truth is that this war was plotted and engineered by the Jews for world-power and vengeance".Richard Griffiths, ''Patriotism Perverted'' (Faber & Faber, 2015)
 
On 20 March 1940, Ramsay asked a question about a propaganda radio station set up by Germany which gave its precise wavelength, which was suspected by both his allies and opponents as a subtle way of advertising it. On 9 May he asked for an assurance from the Home Secretary "that he refuses to be stampeded ... by a ramp in our Jew-ridden press".

Ronald Nall-Cain

In April 1939, Ronald Nall-Cain (Baron Brocket), who joined various anti-Semitic organisations, attended Hitler's 50th birthday celebration.

Antisemitism towards Leslie Hore-Belisha

Around the start of 1940, senior Conservative parliamentarians, including Harold Macmillan and Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (Viscount Cranbourne), led an antisemiticColin Holmes, ''A Tolerant Country?: Immigrants, Refugees and Minorities'' (Abingdom: Routledge, 1991) attack on Secretary of State for War Leslie Hore-Belisha, the influence of which led Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to remove him from office in January 1940. A week after Hore-Belisha was dismissed, Ramsay distributed in the House of Commons copies of '' ''Truth'''' (a magazine connected to Neville ChamberlainMark Pitchford, ''The Conservative Party and the Extreme Right 1945-1975'' (Manchester University Press, 2001)) which made allegations about Hore-Belisha's financial activities.A. R. J. Kushner, '' (July 1986). PhD thesis. Department of Economic and Social History, University of Sheffield Ramsay also put down a motion which cited the regretful reactions of many newspapers to Hore-Belisha's sacking as evidence of Jewish control of the press.Susan Hollern Szczetnikowicz, '' (Jan. 2006). PhD thesis. Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire Subsequently, Hore-Belisha was blocked from taking office as Minister of Information because of antisemitic pressure led by the Foreign Secretary, Edward Wood.Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, ''Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man'' (Penguin, 2007) Edward Stanley (Lord Derby) commented to the French Ambassador, "I hope you and your people do not take M nsieurHore-Belisha to be a true Englishman". Henry "Chips" Channon, a "great friend of Leslie Hore-Belisha", referred to Hore-Belisha as "the Jew boy" (" utI am fond of him", they added). Channon also described Hore-Belisha as "an oliy man, half-Jew, an opportunist, with the Semitic flair for publicity". During this time there was antisemitism "in the corridors of power".

Grassroots level

Antisemitism towards Jewish election candidates

Daniel Lipson, Mayor of Cheltenham, was rejected by Cheltenham Conservative Association as their potential election candidate in the 1937 by-election because of antisemitism within the association.

Winston Churchill leadership (1940–1955)

According to Colin Shindler, during Winston Churchill's political life, there was "ingrained anti-Semitism in the Conservative Party".

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

In August 1945 ''The Jewish Chronicle'' reported that "antisemitism on the part of onservativeparty supporters had led many local political associations not to select Jewish candidates". During the election campaign of that year, Conservative candidate Wavell Wakefield said that Jewish refugees should be repatriated to solve London's housing crisis.Graham Macklin, 'A quite natural and moderate defensive feeling'? The 1945 Hampstead 'anti-alien' petition' (2003) in ''Patterns of Prejudice'' 37:3 DOI: 10.1080/00313220307594 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). In 1945, the local Hampstead Conservative group began agitation against Jewish immigration.

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. 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. Hampstead's Conservative MP, Charles Challen, promised to give the petition his "unstinting support" and he asked a number of questions in the House of Commons on behalf of the petitioners over the following months. 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.

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". 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".

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".Hannah Ewence, 'Placing the 'Other' in Our Midst: Immigrant Jews, Gender and the British Imperial Imagination' (2010), University of Southampton, Faculty of Humanities, PhD Thesis 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 Mosely's Union Movement) established "an active fascist group" within the local Hampstead parliament. The local Conservative group reached an accord with the fascists on the issue of Jewish immigration.

Anthony Eden leadership (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".

Harold Macmillan leadership (1957–1963)

Parliamentary level

Macmillan's antisemitism

Macmillan wrote to a friend during the 1919 Paris peace talks that the government of Prime Minister Lloyd George was not "really popular, except with the International Jew".C. C. Johnson, '' (28/12/11) on Tablet Macmillan's diaries were "spattered with abuse of other public figures, often tinged with antisemitism". Gerald Kaufman was someone Macmillan referred to antisemitically in his diaries.Gerald Kaufman, (10/09/14) in The Guardian Macmillan "often made snide jokes about Jews and Jewish politicians". On another occasion, he called Leslie Hore-Belisha "Horeb Elisha", thereby highlighting his Jewish ancestry by referencing Mount Horeb and the prophet Elisha.

Local level

Involvement with antisemitic groups

In 1958, the Conservative Party Council of the Bournemouth constituency nominated James Friend to be the constituency's prospective parliamentary candidate.'' (22/12/58) in Jewish Telegraphic Agency's Daily News Bulletin Jewish members of the council resigned because, they alleged, Friend had "close links with the antisemitic League of Empire Loyalists and has engaged in antisemitic activities". Friend had given the inaugural meeting of the League of Empire Loyalists' local branch. Douglas Hogg (Lord Hailsham), chairman of the British Conservative Party, reportedly made a personal inquiry into the matter.

Grassroots level

Golf Club antisemitism

In 1957 "prominent Conservatives" who were in control of the Finchley Golf Club were baring Jews from joining. This, according to Alderman, was the "most blatant example" of "anti-Jewish prejudice ... rampant in some arts of theConservative associations" in post-war Britain; it resulted in "an angry wave of Jewish anti-Tory protest" in the Finchley area.R.W. Johnson, '' Vol. 11 No. 8 (20/04/89) in London Review of Books

Edward Heath leadership (1965–1975)

"Zionist influence" investigation

In 1971, when Edward Heath was Prime Minister and the Foreign Office was headed by Alec Douglas-Home, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office launched a secret investigation to "evaluate Zionist influence in the US and Europe". The findings "echoed anti-Semitic notions of Jewish financial power, dual loyalty and undue political influence".Dave Rich, '' (17/01/16) on ''Haaretz'' The report was concerned with power and influence of "Jewish money" and the "Jewish lobby" and "appeared to treat the people and organizations involved in British Zionism not as British citizens exercising their democratic rights, but as agents of foreign pressure on the government", "reflected a belief that Diaspora Jewish interests were separate from, and even inimical to, those of the countries in which they lived".

Antisemitism towards Gerald Kaufman

The Labour MP Gerald Kaufman was critical of the arms delivery embargo the Conservative government imposed on Israel during the 1973 attack by Egypt on Israel. Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home told Kaufman that his (Kaufman's) "loyalty appeared to be to Israel and not to Britain". To Kaufman, "It was a clear anti-Jewish insinuation". On another occasion, Charles Taylor told Kaufman to "Get back to Tel Aviv".

Margaret Thatcher leadership (1975–1990)

Parliamentary level

Alan Clark

In 1981, Alan Clark (Minister of State for Trade, 1986–1989; Minister for Defence Procurement, 1989–1992) told Frank Johnson that he, Clark, was a Nazi.Dominic Lawson, ' (15/09/09) on ''The Independent'' He wrote in his diary that day (Tuesday 8 December) about the conversation: "Yes, I told him, I was a Nazi. I really believed it to be the ideal system, and that it was a disaster for the Anglo-Saxon races and for the world that it was extinguished". When Johnson questioned whether he was serious, Clark confirmed he was: "Oh yes, I told him, I was completely committed to the whole philosophy". Clark also told Christopher Hitchens that he, Clark, was a Nazi.

On 31 March 1982, Clark made the following diary entry:

Today I asked an offensive question about Jews. It is always thought to be rude to refer to "Jews", isn't it? I remember that slightly triste occasion, watched from the gallery, of my father being inaugurated into the Lords and my rage at Sidney Bernstein, who was being ennobled on the same afternoon and would not take the Christian oath. As loudly as I could I muttered and mumbled about "Jews" in order to discomfit his relations who were also clustered in the gallery.
:I had hung it around the Forgeign Secretary's visit to Israel ... It is always fun to see how far you can go with taboo subjects...

On 26 December 1986, while Minister of State for Trade, Clark described in his diary the colour of someone's gold Rolls-Royce as "Jewish racing yellow", adding that apparently that is what "the colour is termed in the Mess at Knightsbridge".

During a visit to Poland in 1989, Clark visited the Wolf's Lair at Rastenburg to celebrate Hitler's escape from the 20 July plot. He referred to Hitler by the intimate nickname ''Wolf'', used by the Bayreuth Circle, and named his pets after Hitler's companions. He quoted approvingly from Mein Kampf and had signed photograph of Hitler, which he "would consult ... in moments of stress".

Recounting their school days at Eton College, fellow Conservative MP Marcus Kimball said Clark "was very unpopular ... because he was a Nazi; no question about it. He supported the Nazi party".

The Association of Jewish Refugees placed Clark in the middle of a continuum of Holocaust denial, between David Irving and John Charmley.

Hamilton's Nazi salute

On an August 1983 parliamentary trip to Berlin, Neil Hamilton made a Nazi salute "with two fingers to his nose to give the impression of a toothbrush moustache" when outside the Reichstag. The salute was reported on 30 January 1984 in a BBC ''Panorama'' programme, "Maggie's Militant Tendency". Hamilton sued the BBC for libel, claiming that he had no recollection of making the salute. The BBC pulled out of the case and Hamilton was awarded £20,000 in damages. However, after the case collapsed, Hamilton admitted in a ''Sunday Times'' article to having made the Nazi salute.

Antisemitism towards Jews in the cabinet

There were a number of Jews in Margaret Thatcher's cabinet, all of whom experienced antisemitism from their colleagues. The antisemitism may have been involved in the resignation of two Jewish cabinet members. Harold Macmillan commented that the Conservative cabinet "was more old Estonian than old Etonian", which was "a none-too-subtle way of putting Nigel Lawson, Leon Brittan or Michael Howard in their place".Denis MacShane, ''Globalising Hatred: The New Antisemitism'' (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2008) Leon Brittan resigned as Trade and Industry Secretary in January 1986 over the Westland affair. Jonathan Aitken wrote of Brittan's resignation: "Soon after a poisonous meeting of Tory backbenchers at the 1922 Committee he fell on his sword. It was a combination of a witch hunt and a search for a scapegoat – tainted by an undercurrent of anti-Semitism. ..I believed what should have been obvious to anyone else, that he was being used as a lightning conductor to deflect the fire that the Prime Minister argaret Thatcherhad started and inflamed". In the discussion over who should replace Leon Brittan after he was removed from the cabinet, John Stokes commented that the "replacement should at least be a 'proper red-faced, red-blooded Englishman'". The Jewish Board of Deputies sensed an antisemitic slur in the words, as did Brittan's non-Jewish wife Diana Brittan. Other antisemitic comments were made about Brittan by his fellow Conservatives: "But these came from members who would make slighting remarks about almost anyone with a background different from their own", Conservative MPs commented.J. Lelyveld, '' (19/02/86) in ''The New York Times''

Edwina Currie also received antisemitic comments from "certain red-faced, red-blooded Englishmen on the Tory backbenches". Former MP Anna McCurley reported that Currie, despite being a member of the Church of England, was labelled a "pushy Jewess". An advisor to John Moore commented that the Conservative backbenches were "riddled with prejudice of every kind", with "anti-Semitism eingsecondary to the male chauvinism" in the case of Currie. John Marshall also said that there was antisemitism in the Conservative party at this time.'' (03/11/89) on Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Grassroots level

Antisemitism towards Jewish election candidate

In 1982 Michael Howard finally became election candidate for Folkestone after having been rejected by about 40 constituency parties because of antisemitism within those parties.J. Freedland, '' (31/10/03) in The Guardian

Links to the NF

During the 1983 general election a Conservative Party candidate who had formerly been a member of the National Front ran for election in a marginal constituency, Stockton South. The Board of Deputies of British Jews distributed flyers in the constituency to inform people of this. The SDP won the seat, but only very narrowly.

John Major leadership (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.

William Hague leadership (1997–2001)

In 2000, four Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) members were expelled for making Nazi salutes. 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". Another prominent member was dismissed from the Oxford University Student Union's executive for "marching up and down doing a Nazi salute".

Michael Howard leadership (2002–2005)

In October 2004, a Conservative frontbencher said, "The trouble is that the onservativeparty is being run by Michael Howard, Maurice Saatchi, and Oliver Letwin – and none of them really knows what it is to be English". 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?"

David Cameron leadership (2005–2016)

Parliamentary level

Membership of European Conservatives and Reformists

In 2009, prominent Jewish community leaders – including chief rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich, Rafał Pankowski

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