Conspiracy theory believers 'are more likely to be antisemites'

People who believe in conspiracy theories are more likely to have antisemitic opinions than non-believers, new research shows.

Rather than antisemitism being confined to left or right-wingers, antisemitic views are more prevalent both among people who consider it justifiable to take extreme authoritarian action against political opponents, and people who want to overthrow social order.

Dr Daniel Allington, reader in social analytics at King's College London, said, "Whether we look at the left or the right of the political spectrum, we find people who are antisemitic and people who aren't.

“Our findings help us to get beyond the question of whether antisemitism is more of a problem on the right or on the left. What we found is that antisemitic views are more likely among conspiracy theorists, revolutionaries, and people who see dictatorship as an acceptable form of government.”

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The researchers believe it is the most comprehensive study to date examining the opinions of people with antisemitic views.

They suggest that antisemitism may be less closely linked to political beliefs than previously thought, and more closely linked to opinions and views on other topics such as religion, ethnic nationalism, and conspiracy theories.

Researchers conducted two surveys of UK-resident adults, the first with 809 participants recruited through crowdsourcing platform Prolific, and the second with 1,853 participants sampled by YouGov.

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Dr David Hirsh, senior lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, said, "These findings suggest a convergence. On the one hand, antisemites who believe the democratic state to be a trick played on 'the people' by 'the Jews' might feel justified in tearing it down and taking repressive action against those responsible.

“On the other hand, political movements that embrace conspiracy fantasies may feel justified in repressing political opponents, are not afraid to overthrow the democratic state, and are also likely to be open to antisemitism.”

Because of the link to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis during the Second World War, antisemitism has previously been assumed to be a right wing phenomenon.

However, it has always existed across both sides of the political spectrum, as previous scholarship has shown.

More recently, the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that the Labour Party committed unlawful acts in relation to antisemitism during the period of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, highlighting the problem of antisemitism on the contemporary political left.