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Monday 16 July 2018

Michael Fabricant and Sadiq Khan

Michael Fabricant is quite rightly in hot water over an image he retweeted about Sadiq Khan that was blatantly anti-Muslim.  His initial defence was to announce that he was a "socially liberal conservative" which he appeared to think made it all fine.

As well as being called out on his anti-Muslim bigotry, this illustrate the potential problem around  the Labour Party's alteration of the IHRA definition of antisemitism.  Suppose a similar picture were circulated about a Jewish politician; it would undoubtedly be seen as antisemitic.

However, if action were brought under Jennie Formby's preferred definition of antisemitism, one would need to prove antisemitic "intent".  That is practically impossible since how can you tell what some one is thinking at a particular time.  The result would be a cat and mouse game in which the offender could easily brush off any process by declaring their innocence.  It would indeed be what Luciana Berger calls a "get out of jail free card". 

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