Wes Streeting appears to have dumped himself in a lot of trouble.

The Labour MP, whose antipathy towards Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters is well-documented, appears to have gone too far with an attempt to “out” a Twitter user as an anti-Semite with a faked image while publishing her full, real name.

Others involved in the exchange said they reported the incident to Twitter – and may also have reported Mr Streeting to the police.

Here’s the tweet that started it all:

And here’s the tweet to which he was referring:

Notice that the tweet does not dismiss anti-Semitism “as a smear”, as Mr Streeting suggested, but says that Luciana Berger has smeared Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the more-than-500,000 members of the Labour Party with claims of widespread anti-Semitism among them.

Mr Streeting continued:

Interesting subject, the Rothschilds: A hugely wealthy and influential business/banking organisation that is apparently immune from investigation under any circumstances because those questioning its actions may always be accused of anti-Semitism. Does anybody – apart from a witch-hunter – think that is reasonable? We can see that Mr Streeting does, but then, he stands with the witch-hunters.

He concluded: “People like @xpressanny deny the problem, even when it stares them in the face. People like Ann Wetherly-Barton aren’t just bystanders to antisemitism, they’re enablers. To understand the problem, she doesn’t need a dossier – just a mirror. Now leave Luciana and Emily alone.”

He had gone too far, as “Wolfie” pointed out, with support from “Valleyboy” – both pseudonyms, possibly for good reasons as outlined here:

https://twitter.com/welshlad79/status/1092892611159969798

The practice is known as “doxxing” – searching for and publishing private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the Internet, typically with malicious intent. Can anyone deny that this is what Mr Streeting has done?

The matter of the image is complicated. The quotation is not from Voltaire, but it is likely that many people have supported it and spread it in the belief that it is. In fact, it was said by an American white nationalist, neo-Nazi, Holocaust denier and white separatist called Kevin Alfred Strom. It seems that anti-Semitism witch-hunters have taken to using it to spread false accusations against innocent people – guilt through association.

But the assertion in the words is entirely reasonable, isn’t it? In a nation that is said to value free speech, any demand that one cannot criticise others  – for whatever reason – is an assertion of power.

It is possible that some of those who have been netted by this trick associated the quote with the words of Tony Benn – most definitely not an anti-Semite – in his “essential five questions of democracy”. Those questions ask: What power have you got? Where did you get it? In whose interests do you use it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?

Obviously if someone in power is not accountable, this means we are not allowed to criticise them. You see the similarity?

Next: The image used by Mr Sweeting has been doctored. The original – and most popular – does not feature the Star of David on the sleeve of the arm that is crushing the people. But the space has been used to accommodate several symbols or phrases, as a Google image search (other search engines are available) will reveal.

As a widely-used and popular meme that most commonly appears without the anti-Semitic addition of the Star of David on the sleeve, and that features a sentiment with which most people would approve (although they may not support the person who coined it), it seems possible that the person Mr Streeting had targeted had voiced her support for it without noting its sinister undertones.

I was nearly caught out in a similar way on Twitter a couple of weeks ago. A witch-hunter tweeted an image of former Israeli Knesset member Shulamit Aloni, who said the government of that country often accuses its critics of anti-Semitism in order to avoid dealing with the issues presented to it. On that basis, I pressed the “like” button – and was then accused of supporting anti-Semitism because the image included text of an anti-Semitic nature. Unfortunately for my own critics, the image had been cropped automatically by Twitter so the text was not visible when I saw it on my timeline.

Twitter users have made Mr Streeting aware that the ploy used to entrap his victim has been spotted:

https://twitter.com/MICHAELMCQUAD13/status/1092894322935152641

Michael McQuade’s complaint has been taken up by others, with one creating a template letter:

https://twitter.com/Mrm00c0w/status/1092777160656543744

https://twitter.com/Mrm00c0w/status/1092777553457266689

https://twitter.com/Mrm00c0w/status/1092892101778567169

However, it seems Labour’s corrupt complaints system – which automatically suspends any ordinary member at the slightest whiff of an anti-Semitism accusation – is geared to shrug off criticism of Parliamentarians.

https://twitter.com/Mrm00c0w/status/1093100263114752000

It certainly seems there may be a reckless endangerment case here. It has been alleged that Mr Streeting’s victim has been dogpiled on Twitter by his supporters and those of the fake anti-Semitism witch-hunt.

There is another matter as well, regarding Mr Streeting. I will not quote the details here but you can find it if you look up comments on this issue by @eddiegraham39 on Twitter. It is possible that Mr Streeting should be facing much, much stronger court action.

If it happens, he will have brought it on himself. He is not above the law and should be reminded of that fact.

POSTSCRIPT: Mr Streeting seems to enjoy throwing his weight around with allegations of anti-Semitism. After The Sunday Times published its now-disproved article about This Writer, he tweeted the following:

He was accusing me of anti-Semitism; he was wrong. Where’s my apology?

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