TV personality, barrister and JC columnist Rob Rinder has revealed he used to defend members of one of Britain’s most notorious far-right groups.

Speaking on the first episode of the JC’s new podcast, Let’s Talk, sponsored by the Athena Advisors, Rinder spoke about how he regularly heard antisemitic remarks while representing members of the National Front, who did not know he was Jewish or gay.

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Hot topics: the JC’s podcast

In the podcast, released today, Rinder said: “I wasn’t exactly on a retainer by them, but I was a criminal barrister and you had to represent people without fear or favour, that was the rule.

“And I certainly heard antisemitic tropes and things being said. On one occasion, I was thanked because this particular client was glad that I wasn’t a ‘yid or a queer’ and I had to resist every facet of my being not to do jazz hands and say, ‘oy vey’.”

Rob Rinder, right, in 2015 (WENN Rights Ltd Alamy Stock Photo.)

Rob Rinder writes for the Jewish Chronicle (Photo: Alamy)

In the conversation with JC editor Jake Wallis Simons, Rinder also talked of the difficulty of talking to people about Israel: “Often, (people’s views) will have been curated through the prism of social media.

"But what I’ve learned as well is that I’m not going to change that narrative by deploying facts or history on its own.

That’s true of people who hold deep-seated anti-Jewish and anti-Israel views. They sit in the hemisphere of the brain where emotion is, and not logic. You could talk all you like about the origins of the state… None of that will touch the sides.”

Let’s Talk: The JC podcast is available now on Apple, Spotify and all other major platforms