The readiness of the British state to crack down on the anti-genocide protests might appear to be less in bad faith, were it not at the same time so indulgent of the virulently anti-Muslim marches led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

The establishment’s tolerance of Robinson’s racist antics echoes its deference towards Farage – and both contrast starkly with the ongoing fear-mongering over the anti-genocide marches and the surging Green vote.

The citing of Jewish fear rationalises this stark imbalance. But when the state and billionaire-owned media control the main narratives about Britain, it is all too easy for them to foment fear among sections of the Jewish public, as well as the wider public, that the left is responsible for a rising tide of hate – whether from a Corbyn or a Polanski – while deflecting attention from the real threat from the right.

This can then be constructed, as it has been, into an unassailable narrative. To question its premises, as Polanski has tried to do, is supposedly to dismiss Jewish concerns. It is to minimise the antisemitism threat. In his case, it is to prove he is not really Jewish.

The benefits of this strategy for the billionaire class are clear. Most obviously, it insulates them from political and economic scrutiny and electoral challenge.

But it does more, too. It provides them with a pretext to impose new draconian controls over basic political rights to speak and to protest.

It creates a shadowy enemy – in Russia, China and now Iran – that can be cynically used to smear homegrown insurgent politics, while any debate about Israel’s all-too-open meddling in British politics is pronounced as off-limits.

None of this should surprise us. The billionaires who fund our main parties, whose corporations are too big to fail, whose media dictate who are the good guys and who the bad, did not design this system so it could be easily broken apart.

For them, there is too much at stake to let voting count.

The question for Polanski, as for Corbyn before him, is this: can a chink in the armour be found? Can the spear of an insurgent politics pierce through the billionaires’ defences? Can it finally bring the Epstein class to their knees?

This is an extract from my latest article. Read the rest here: