The left may think it has a monopoly on calling out extremism, but the inconvenient truth is it’s so busy trying to silence others, it doesn’t acknowledge it in its own ranks.
The latest target has been Raheem Kassam, hitherto a little-known figure among Australians, but the former London editor of Breitbart News as well as an ex-adviser to Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage.
Kassam was a guest speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) over the weekend, but only because Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally didn’t get her way.
The senator had used parliamentary privilege to accuse Kassam of being a “career bigot” and “a person who spreads hate speech about Muslims, about women and about gay and lesbian people”, demanding he be denied entry to the country.
Keneally also shamed the Liberals speaking alongside Kassam at the conference – Senator Amanda Stoker and MP Craig Kelly among them – and said the conference represented the “normalisation of the extreme right wing in Australia.”
Now, it’s true this Kassam bloke has said some unsavoury things in the past, not least his remark about Scottish National Party leader Nicole Sturgeon whose legs he said should be taped shut so “she can’t reproduce”, particularly insensitive given she’d had a miscarriage.
It’s worth noting he later apologised for the comment.
Read the article by Caroline Marcus in The Daily Telegraph.