A Conservative MP has come under fire for planning to speak alongside figures from Europe's far right and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who been accused of mounting antisemitic attacks on George Soros.
Shrewsbury and Atcham MP Daniel Kawczynski, and Mr Orbán are among the 22 speakers at the National Conservatism conference, which will take place over February 3 and 4 in Rome.
Dame Margaret Hodge, the new parliamentary chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, called on Boris Johnson to intervene.
She said: “Johnson does not miss an opportunity to criticise Labour’s antisemitism. While I have agreed with him at times on that, it would be intolerable if he did not stamp out the attendance of one his senior MPs at a conference that will promote racist views.”
Mr Orbán, who won a third consecutive Hungarian election in 2018, has faced strong criticism in recent years for attacks on Mr Soros, the Hungarian-born financier who survived the Holocaust as a child.
During the last parliamentary elections, Mr Orbán’s government launched a campaign that featured posters Mr Soros with the slogan “Let’s not allow Soros to have the last laugh!”
Mr Orbán also once attacked Mr Soros in a speech, saying: “We are fighting an enemy that is different from us.
"Not open, but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world.”
Also appearing at the conference will be Polish MEP Ryszard Legutko, who has described homophobia as a “totally fictitious problem”, and Hermann Tertsch, an MEP for the Spanish anti-immigrant Vox party, who argues that General Franco was not a fascist, the Guardian reports.
Also attending is Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Italian Lega Nord party, whose hardline immigration measures included the closure of Italian ports to NGO rescue vessels and the abolition of key protections for asylum seekers.
Another is Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the Brothers of Italy party, who has been accompanied to political events by Rachele Mussolini, a granddaughter of the wartime dictator Benito Mussolini.
Andrew Gwynne, the shadow Communities Secretary, added: “It’s disgraceful that just days after Holocaust Memorial Day, Daniel Kawczynski is planning to share a platform with antisemites, Islamophobes and homophobes.
"He should be immediately suspended from the Conservative Party and the whip.
“However, given Boris Johnson’s own racist comments and continued pandering to the extreme far right, I won’t hold my breath for the Tories to take action against one of their MPs standing shoulder to shoulder with fascists.”
Last week, Mr Kawczynski also attacked a Jewish journalist, Rivkah Brown, while speaking in the House of Commons over her column in the Independent which discussed Polish laws against attributing the Nazi Holocaust to the Polish state or nation.
He dismissed the Independent as a "left-wing rag".
Mr Kawczynski’s office was approached for comment but had not replied when this article went live.
