A Twitstorm has erupted between Canary Editor Kerry-Anne Mendoza and fellow-leftwinger Guardian columnist Owen Jones, who accused her of belittling the Holocaust with her latest comparison of Brexit to Nazism.
On Wednesday Mendoza mocked Brexiteer PM Boris Johnson, tweeting: “Get Brexit Done. Build, build, build. Jobs, jobs, jobs. Arbeit macht frei.”
The final line in German, “labour makes you free” was a slogan displayed ion many Nazi concentration camps in a cruel mockery of inmates doomed to be worked to death or murdered en masse.
Jones, himself a strident critic of Brexit, responded to Mendoza’s tweet on Friday, calling it “despicable” and adding “Anyone who speaks like this has no place in the left whatsoever.”
— Owen Jones 🌹 (@OwenJones84) August 21, 2020
Mendoza hit back, calling Jones a “craven kiss-ass” and telling him to “Take your privilege and do one.”
Owen Jones is a craven, kiss-ass who’s been more curse than support to the left.
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza (@TheMendozaWoman) August 21, 2020
Truly sick of his high-handed nonsense.
You’re not my Dad, Owen. Take your privilege and do one.
Jones later claimed that “lots of Jewish people” had complained to him about Mendoza’s tweet and asked him to “call it out as a left-wing commentator.”
Lots of Jewish people got in touch with me about this tweet, expressed their distress, asked me to call it out as a left-wing commentator, which I gladly did. When minorities on the receiving end of bigotry ask for our support, we should listen to them.
— Owen Jones 🌹 (@OwenJones84) August 21, 2020
Mendoza hit back by implying Jones had joined “the witch hunt and their enablers” and there was no fault in warning of “rising fascism in modern Britain.”
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza (@TheMendozaWoman) August 21, 2020
When conservative author and Henry Jackson Society member Douglas Murray waded into the row, Mendoza accused Jones of “uniting with the worst of humanity.”
Hilarious. I’m not taking lectures on antisemitism from you or any of your far-right sycophants.
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza (@TheMendozaWoman) August 21, 2020
Well done to Owen Jones for uniting the worst of humanity in self-righteous anger at being called out for what they are. https://t.co/R10Q0P9fcN
And she bemoaned “liberal commentators policing our resistance to fascism.”
The Left doesn't need bullshit liberal commentators policing our resistance to fascism.
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza (@TheMendozaWoman) August 21, 2020
They kneecapped us during the assault on anti-Apartheid activists.
They kneecapped us during the assault on Corbynism
And now they're kneecapping us on this.
Enough. No pasaran.
Mendoza previously claimed this January’s celebrations for Britain formally leaving the EU would descend into a repeat of Kristallnacht, the infamous 1938 Nazi pogrom where the windows of Jewish-owned shops, buildings and synagogues smashed across the country.
Many, including Jews lambasted those comments at the time.
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