The son of a Holocaust survivor who is standing for Nigel Farage’s new Brexit party has seen his business premises vandalised with a 30-foot Swastika in a suspected anti-Semitic attack.
The attack on Lance Forman’s salmon smokery — a business set up by his Holocaust survivor father — came just weeks after Mr Forman was announced as a candidate for the Brexit Party.
Just returned from a business trip in the US to a call from my factory, that someone had done this!!
A totally sick act. My father is a Holocaust survivor who fled the Nazis and came to the U.K. after the war. My great grandad and founder of Formans fled Antisemitic pogroms too. pic.twitter.com/q8it6HkJfv
— Lance Forman (@LanceForman) May 8, 2019
Forman said that if the anti-Semitic graffiti was linked to his candidacy for the Eurosceptic party, then those responsible had a “topsy-turvy” view of politics. He wrote Wednesday evening that: “London Brexit Party candidates are Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Atheist, Hindi, Baha’i”, and claimed that “no party is as diverse”.
Speaking to the Jewish Chronicle, Forman revealed the police had security camera footage of those responsible. He said: “My dad fled the Nazis in Poland and is a Holocaust survivor who spent the war years as a child in a Siberian prison camp.
“He has worked with HET (the Holocaust Educational Trust) to teach children about the horrors of antisemitism. So the fact that we have been targeted in this antisemitic way is quite horrific and sick.
“The police have images of the culprits on CCTV and I sincerely hope they are tracked down.”
Brexit party chairman Richard Tice said the attack was a “terrible condemnation of the depths to which our politics has descended”, and that the time to say “enough” to such anti-Semitism in British politics had come.
Farage Calls for ‘Peaceful Revolution’ to Challenge UK’s ‘Broken’ Politics https://t.co/4RX2yT8bj5
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 4, 2019
In a statement seen by Breitbart London, Tice said: “Some politicians and commentators are happy to demonise their opponents as Nazis or Fascists, and others are complicit in covering up antisemitism, right at the centre of our nation’s politics. This is unacceptable, and must be condemned by all.
“When a leading member of London’s Jewish community is attacked in this way all must stand up and condemn it. This is exactly what we are talking about when we say that we want to change politics.”
While anti-Semitism had been confined to the fringes of British politics, hatred towards Jews has re-emerged in the political left mainstream, with the opposition Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn being hit by a series of high-profile anti-Semitism scandals in recent years. While Mr Corbyn insists he is working to eradicate the scourge from Labour, several members of Parliament have recently left the party to establish their own, citing concerns including the anti-Semitic environment in the party.
Tony Blair Attacks ‘Poison’ of Anti-Semitism in Swipe at Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour https://t.co/PytwtW1moF
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 7, 2019
Even former Labour leader and ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair has spoken out against anti-Semitism in the political force he once commanded. In 2018, he said: “I’m extremely sad about it, and anxious about it, and also very determined that the Labour Party should take the action necessary to root out anti-Semitism completely, totally. There should be zero tolerance towards it.”
In 2019, Blair said a “nascent alliance” between political Islam and the left in the UK and Europe was a key cause of the rise of anti-Semitism in mainstream politics. Just this week, the former PM said: “Unfortunately today some of this poison is back from the political fringe to parts of the political mainstream.”
Oliver JJ Lane is the editor of Breitbart London — Follow him on Twitter and Facebook
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.