Rees-Mogg backs Holocaust Memorial but questions need for statue recognising British role in slave trade

The hour long conversation, which was also streamed on the United Synagogue's Facebook page, also saw the President of the Privy Council defend himself against allegations he had aligned himself with far-right groups in the UK and abroad.

"I do think it is important that we have a Holocaust Memorial because it is a reminder of what great evil can take place if democratic institutions are perverted," said the North Somerset MP.

"I don't have a strong view where the site should be. But I think it is important we recognise a horror that is so so hard to believe actually happened without the constant reminder that it actually did. I think it is very important to understand our history."

Then asked by Rabbi Lawrence whether there should also be a memorial for the slave trade, Mr Rees-Mogg said: “Maybe now because it is so much longer ago, that the question is at what point do you stop the memorials?

"I think the Holocaust is so uniquely horrible because the intention was mass murder from day one.

"The slave trade was unquestionably evil and a vile activity to have been involved in, but sadly slavery was part of the human condition from the earliest times.

"So it wasn't a uniquely horrible new thing we were doing."

Mr Rees-Mogg was asked about Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's decision to apologise to his country's indigenous peoples in 2008.

He said: “I think if things are still carrying on I think you can apologise for them - I think for things in the dim and distant past it is very hard to apologise for things which you have no direct responsibility."

The outspoken Tory politician also stressed the role Britain played in ending the slave trade after breaking diplomatic ties with Portugal and America,

"It was very much a British led initiative," he said. "I think you need to see history in the round."

Rabbi Lawrence also asked Mr Rees-Mogg about a photograph of himself alongside a white supremacist named Michael Brooks that was published in 2017.

He said: “I’ve no idea who this white supremacist Michael Brooks is , that puzzles me. I get asked for selfies more often than you might expect. One has no idea who these people are."

Mr Rees-Mogg also addressed his decision to address a dinner hosted a far-right group named the Traditional Britain Group in 2013.

He claimed: “They sounded perfectly harmless. I had no idea who Gregory Lauder-Frost, (the group's vice-president) was until somebody rang me the day before and said he's a terrible man.

"I was unable to find this out in time and made the mistake of not cancelling the dinner which I greatly regret. He is a deeply unpleasant man whose views I do not hold , share or like."

He added: “Had I had time to find out who he was I wouldn't have gone. But the Traditional Britain Group sounded absolutely fine. It didn't sound .. it sounded a bit sort of sleepy rather than nasty."

Asked about his decision to tweet a video of a speech by a senior member of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland  (AFD) he said it was "not an endorsement" of  the party, but of an important speech on Europe.

Elsewhere in the discussion, Mr Rees-Mogg restated his support for Israel as a democratic state and an ally in the Middle East.

He said he felt Jeremy Corbyn would have been a "disaster" for the country as PM. He said his failure to tackle  antisemitism was tied up in his support for "real socialism" which "puts the collective ahead of individuals and therefore thinks any clampdown on faith groups for example is a price worth paying."

Sir Keir Starmer he said was a "prospect we must take more seriously" as Conservatives.

He defended PM Boris Johnson and said the Government were doing their best in difficult circumstances to control the Covid-19 pandemic.

But he criticised the decision to embark on mass testing and tracing in the summer - a time he said we did not need to do so.