Stop Funding Hate, the campaign group calling for advertisers to boycott GB News, the recently launched news channel, has been accused of “militant prejudice” and an “extreme far left worldview” after a series of tweets by its strategy adviser and logistics facilitator.
The JC has unearthed comments by Stu Moran, CEO of the Web Foundry, a consultancy that provides logistical and strategic support for SFH. In one, he wrote that, "Much of the UK media seems to be in thrall to Israeli propaganda".
In another, he defended Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey after she was removed from the Shadow Cabinet by Sir Keir Starmer after sharing an article containing an antisemitic conspiracy theory around the death of George Floyd.
Mr Moran wrote: "How have we ended up with criticism of the Israeli state - openly involed in US police training it seems - being branded anti-Semitic @Keir_Starmer? And how can Labour face up to Israel's treatment of Palestine & UN resolutions against it without such criticism" .
Mr Moran described Israel as "the incredibly well-funded and now nuclear power" and defended website The Canary after its editor tweeted "Arbeit macht frei": "Yes, I get that it's not good but compared to things I've seen in almost every tabloid, the Times, Telegraph and even the BBC that cause hate crime on our streets a daily basis - I'd argue that tweet won't - I'm struggling to understand the size of the furore against the Canary?"
Commenting on the tweets, the Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “For Stop Funding Hate to collaborate with people making these sorts of comments is the height of hypocrisy. They should stop funding the hate spread by their own contractor.
“Sadly this seems to be yet another case of an extreme far-left worldview becoming entrenched amongst those who claim the mantle of campaigners against hatred. It is shameful.”
Sir John Hayes MP, Chairman of the Common Sense Group, said: "As is so often the case, the view of virtue amongst these groups and individuals is warped by militant prejudice. On both the hard left and hard right this cancerous preoccupation is rife and it's time this cancer was cut out and the people involved cut off from civilised society."
