Liz Truss was widely condemned for rubbing shoulders with the far-right strategist

Donald Trump loyalist and far-right strategist Steve Bannon recently boasted Liz Truss as a guest on his “Bannon’s War Room” podcast, and she’s not the first Conservative Party member to rub shoulders with the self-proclaimed racist. 

The Former Prime Minister and former strategist found themselves in agreement on things like “taking on extreme leftists” and not allowing them to be “appeased” for Britain to adhere to “the policies its people want”. She appeared on his podcast show during a trip to the Conservative Political Action Conference – despite the podcast being found to be the greatest spreader of misinformation over any other US political talk show in a study last year. 

Jacob Rees-Mogg also met with Bannon back in 2017 to discuss US-UK politics, although later distanced himself from the Bannon’s world views. Rees-Mogg has also been interviewed on the channel Breitbart, which Bannon was the former executive chairman of and which he boasted was “the platform for the alt-right”.

We might as well start off with his most recent interview with none other than Liz Truss, who failed to react, (perhaps she couldn’t hear the man sitting right next to her?) when Bannon praised the English far-right activist Tommy Robinson. 

Bannon called the convicted criminal and anti-Islam campaigner Robinson a ‘hero’, which was not the first time he was praised Robinson. Also no shock from the man who told a crowd of far-right French politicians, to let people “call you racist” and to “wear it as a badge of honour”.

“Let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you nativists. Wear it as a badge of honour. Because every day, we get stronger and they get weaker,” he told the crowd in 2018. 

He has peddled racist immigration views, repeatedly referring to a “Muslim invasion of Europe” and embraced the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. Using a racist metaphor from the cult favourite book of the far right, “The Camp of the Saints”, to describe a large refugee crisis. Under Bannon, Breitbart News also gave platform to a number of anti-Muslim extremists.

Furthermore he has repeatedly peddled Islamophobia calling Islam “the most radical” religion in the world and that the US is engaged in a civilizational struggle leading to “a major shooting war in the Middle East again”, with the West engaged in a “global existential war”.

This links to his reference to the “fifth column” conspiracy theory, again to push anti-Islam rhetoric. He has also been accused of multiple accounts of anti-semitism by his ex-wife in a sworn statement during divorce proceedings, which Bannon denied. 

Bannon was accused of being racist again after making a ‘wildly inaccurate’ claim that Asians compromise the majority of tech CEO positions, which he used to justify that international students should go back to where they came from. 

His comments towards women have left much to be desired, previously calling women who are progressive  a “bunch of dykes that came from the seven sisters schools”. He said this was an “unintended consequence of the women’s liberation movement”. 

Clearly outraged by ‘progressives’, he said in 2011 that the progressive movement is based on “victimhood” and said the fight for equal rights for minorities is based on claims of oppression.

“They’re either a victim of race. They’re victim of their sexual preference. They’re a victim of gender,” he said on Political Vindication Radio.

Hilary Clinton was of course on the receiving end of Bannon’s vile commentary, calling her a “fucking bull dyke”, “a total phony” and saying his goal in the 2016 presidential campaign was, “when you hear Clintons name, you’re gonna throw up”.

Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress and sentenced to jail for four months for defying a subpoena from lawmakers, however is seeking appeal to overturn the conviction.

Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward, focusing on trade unions and environmental issues

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