The Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg invited an overtly racist content creator onto his GB News programme on Monday night, in the latest embarrassment for the channel and the Conservative Party.
On 25 March, Rees-Mogg welcomed Neema Parvini, a far-right influencer, to appear on his GB News talk show and discuss a report about social cohesion. As HOPE not hate has previously highlighted, Parvini, under the social media pseudonyms “Academic Agent”, “Roland Rat” and “Bertie Bassett”, has made a number of extremely racist statements, including that black people are a “different species”.
In a segment to discuss a new report on social cohesion, Rees-Mogg gave Parvini — who he described as an “academic and author” — a platform to lambast the government for the “failure of the Conservative Party to wield power for friends and against enemies while in office”.
Parvini’s appearance on the channel came just hours after HOPE not hate revealed that another GB News presenter, Leo Kearse, has been using an anonymous Telegram account to promote white supremacist ideology. For GB News to host a guest who has described black people as “impulsive and low-IQ” raises further questions about the channel’s agenda and the advertisers who continue to back it.
Rees-Mogg’s guest is a disgraced academic who was dismissed by the University of Surrey after it was revealed that he ran a YouTube channel under the pseudonym “Academic Agent”, in which he espoused racist views.
Since then, Parvini has built a career as a far-right influencer and spoke at the conference of last year’s Traditional Britain Group, an extremist organisation that also hosted Jacob Rees-Mogg for dinner in 2013 (for which Rees-Mogg later apologised).
Parvini professes far-right beliefs that make him wildly unfit for a TV discussion about social cohesion. For example, he has argued that to recreate “rightwing victories in mid-century Europe”, there is a need for “street-level supremacy [..] an underground army to fight back. People who don’t care if they go to jail.”
In case his reference to “rightwing victories in mid-century Europe” was too vague, Parvini clarified it in follow-up posts: “fascists and Germans faced a two-tier system back then. Modern SA [Sturmabteilung] has to be so many boots on the ground police won’t touch them”.
In other posts he has argued that it was correct to support historical fascist leaders Franco and Mussolini:
Parvini is also an enthusiastic proponent of Julius Evola, an extreme right-wing Italian philosopher and self-described “super fascist”. He has repeatedly promoted Evola’s essay “Negrified America”, describing the racist screed as “obviously correct”.
On his programme, Rees-Mogg said he was “very pleased” to be joined by Parvini, allowed him to plug his recent book, and nodded quietly while his guest berated the government for six minutes.
The decision by Rees-Mogg to platform an extremist like Parvini is, like his decision to attend the far-right Traditional Britain Group dinner in 2013, further evidence that the radical fringe of the Conservative Party is a legitimate cause for concern.
HOPE not hate reveals two more extremist candidates from Reform UK, in the latest of a string of embarrassments for the party UPDATE: Just hours…
