UK Jewish leaders’ surprising response to Farage’s antisemitic comments

During the last couple of weeks, President Trump’s helter-skelter ride – from Minneapolis to Venezuela, from Iran to Greenland – has transfixed onlookers around the world. White House acolytes have genuflected amidst a standing ovation on his every word. Europeans have wrung their hands in silence and hoped for a parallel universe.

Many concerned Diaspora Jews agreed with the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, when he spoke rationally and eloquently of the rupture of respect for the rule of law, human dignity and national sovereignty.

One group of the usual Trump flatterers, however, was not amused by the president’s obsession to annex Greenland in its entirety. The populist Right in many countries did not take kindly to Trump’s trampling on the principle of national sovereignty – as a matter of ideology. Given Trump’s unpredictability, if it could happen to Denmark, it could happen anywhere.

In the UK, Nigel Farage’s Reform party similarly uttered a rare rejection of Trump’s bullying imperialism. His comments desecrating the NATO war dead in Afghanistan poured more oil on troubled waters.

Many British Jews fear the advance of the populist Right. Numerous polls indicate that Reform will emerge as the biggest party at the next UK general election and that Farage is currently the frontrunner to become prime minister.

Farage has projected himself as a cheeky chappie, a vaudevillian entertainer, overflowing with bonhomie – a straight-talking man of the people, holding his pint glass.