Yesterday, the trolls took aim at me.
This is not especially unusual in my line of work. Write about antisemitism and extremism for long enough and online abuse becomes something of an occupational hazard. But this was different.
The trigger was a story I reported on about Rupert Lowe drawing a moral equivalence between the grooming gangs scandal and the Holocaust.
The grooming gangs are a horror this country needs to reckon with. The systematic rape of vulnerable girls over decades and the institutional failure by authorities to confront those crimes, including a racial element, must be confronted.
There are many ways to address these urgently important issues.
None of them require using the offensive phrasing the leader of Restore Britain chose when he accused the Labour government of covering up “something the equivalent of the Holocaust”.
Before the JC published our story, I gave Lowe the chance to clarify his comment. He declined.
Posting the story on X, I commented: “The same party leader who is obsessed with banning kosher slaughter and was filmed making an antisemitic joke is now harping on about the grooming gang scandal being equivalent to the Holocaust.”
Lowe responded by cynically reframing my words as an attempt to downplay the scandal itself. “I am going to continue ‘harping’ on about the mass rape of vulnerable white English girls,” he replied.
The effect of his reply was instantaneous – an online mob descended, opening a floodgate of vile antisemitism, as the post drew hundreds of comments and a million-plus views.
I have dealt with trolls from the Labour left, the Tory right, the Greens and Islamist extremists, but the ferocity of Restore Britain's online ecosystem knocked me for six.
I am going to share some of the comments here – not because I am claiming victimhood, I am fine – because it matters to record what is now starting to pass for normal discourse around a new emerging force in British politics, with Restore polling at seven per cent in the Makerfield by-election.
Some accounts may well have been bots, but others were plainly real people, posting under their own names with Restore Britain logos.
Many were simply Holocaust deniers. "It's much worse, the grooming gangs actually happened," wrote one X user. Another of the score of such posts said the Holocaust was "about 271k ppl whereas this grooming gang epidemic is far far worse."
Others used shameless racist language. One post said Lowe should “Deport Jane with the browns”.
Again and again, there was a fixation on my Jewishness, a belief that I am not white, and the repeated evocation of Nazi imagery.
One account posted an image of Adolf Hitler and the words: “You are Jewish”. Another shared a vintage poster that depicted Jewish caricatures fleeing a Nazi, while a separate user branded me a “Goebbels disciple”.
Another account, using the cartoon toad that has become a mascot for sections of the online extreme far-right known as "Groypers", wrote: “Let’s make you famous, Jane.” And sure enough, the so-called “Groyper army” descended.
According to these trolls, I am a “sickening creature” and a “Jewish parasite,” a “dumb b*tch” who is “pro rape” and “the absolute worst kind of filthy piece of sh*t you can imagine” and also a “vile f***ing c***” who will “burn in hell”.
Lowe claims friendship towards Jews and even defended an Israeli sports team briefly barred from a competition in his Great Yarmouth constituency, but his politics and his language is full of disturbing signals. Last year, as an interviewer adjusted a camera, Lowe remarked: “In days gone by you would call it a Jewish camera, but that would be politically incorrect, because it’s so small.” He refused to apologise for what seemed to be an antisemitic joke.
And then there is his relentless campaign against kosher and halal slaughter. This is presented as a matter of legitimate policy and even entered Parliament with a bill for new labelling laws on kosher and halal meat passing its first reading. But in our populist era, politics is increasingly about coded signals.
When he reached for needless Holocaust comparisons, when he brushed off the camera remark and when his reply turned his online following towards me, it revealed what Restore and its followers really think.
It is a pattern with a long pedigree. When Jeremy Corbyn told British Zionists they "don't understand English irony" despite "having lived in this country for a very long time” the implication was that however long we Jews have been in Britain, we will always be foreign. Restore are at the diametrically opposite point of the political spectrum, but the instinct of many of the party’s followers is the same as Corbyn’s and they express it without even the thin veil of his coded language.
For now, I’ve muted the post and assume the hate mail will die down as it usually does. But I am troubled that the words of these trolls now pass for normal discourse around a political force led by a man who sits in Parliament – and I am troubled because online discourse is so often a harbinger of our future.
To get more from opinion, click here to sign up for our free Editor's Picks newsletter.