So that’s it then, is it? In Brighton last month, a mainstream political party declared that ‘Zionism is racism’ and casually denied the right of the world’s only Jewish nation to exist. But now attention has shifted. The news cycle has moved on. The anti-Semitism in the Green Party of England and Wales is, it seems, so last month. Forget the erstwhile eco-warriors obsessing over Jews. Look over here instead: there are some racists in Reform UK.

The sighs of relief emanating from major news corporations when it emerged that undercover reporters from ITV had footage showing some members of Reform making vile, racist remarks must have reverberated across London. Journalists could relax. Order had been restored. No longer would commentators have to confront the horrendous implications of the Green Party’s support for ‘the establishment of a single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine’.

Awkward questions about what would happen to Israel’s Jews if delegates got their way could be safely parked. Commentators could stop stressing about why posh hippies had moved from pondering wind power and recycling to calling for the destruction of Israel and get back to sounding the alarm about Reform. Phew.

It’s true that in the documentary, Undercover: A Year in Reform, ITV’s covert crew found some horrible examples of racism. They filmed an activist saying that Muslims cannot be British. The same man also argued that illegal immigrants should be kept in ‘concentration camps’ if they could not be immediately deported. Meanwhile, two Reform councillors suggested that grooming-gang members should be executed, preferably on a Sunday morning in Downing Street’s rose garden.

A Reform councillor from south London was recorded calling for King Charles to be decapitated because he ‘is a Muslim’. Perhaps most damning of all, a councillor from Solihull said that his ward had been ‘infested’ with Asian families. He labelled them ‘absolute parasites’ and said he wanted to ‘drag them out of their homes, stick them on planes and fuck them off to Pakistan.’

These are despicable sentiments. (Although I have to confess I’m baffled as to why I should be outraged by over-excited talk of executing child rapists.) Pointing out that Britain’s political class seems more comfortable decrying racism in Reform than dissecting anti-Semitism in the Green Party is not intended to downplay the racist remarks made by some Reform activists. But it is not ‘whataboutery’ to suggest that the two cases differ in crucial ways.

Most obviously, ITV’s reporters had to go undercover for 12 months to find evidence of racism among Reform members. They had to cast the net widely, embedding themselves in branches across the country. And they had to lie to gain the trust of Reform activists.

Journalists occasionally need to engage in undercover reporting to expose stories that some want to keep hidden from the public. Although inherently deceitful, it is justified when there is sufficient public interest in revealing the truth. Such investigations are usually tightly focussed and time-limited. Yet the ITV investigation seemed more like a fishing exercise. Rather than pursuing specific allegations, reporters spent a year waiting for confirmation of their political prejudices.

Of course, no such undercover reporting was needed to expose the anti-Semitism within the Green Party. Conference delegates proudly declared their support for the motion calling for the erasure of Israel and effectively banishing practising Jews from the party. Journalists did not need to go in disguise to find Green Party members calling for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state – they committed this treacherous act in plain sight.

Unlike the uncouth Reform activists filmed by ITV, Green Party members have been trained up in universities and are steeped in critical race theory. They think that shouting ‘Zionism is racism’ puts them on the side of the virtuous. They think they are superior to the Reform activists ill-versed in the vocabulary of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. But it is not true. Racism appears in different guises. Referring to Asian people as parasites is racist, but so too is calling for the destruction of the only Jewish state.

Commentators excited that racists have been found in Reform overlook another important fact. That reporters were forced to spend a year undercover to expose 90 minutes’ worth of despicable remarks shows that the views now being exposed are not those of Reform’s leadership. If they were, they would be stated boldly and clearly, not divulged in private. Instead, senior figures in Reform quickly distanced themselves and the party from the comments. The Green Party’s anti-Semitism, on the other hand, has been publicly backed by many of the organisation’s higher-ups, including deputy leader Mothin Ali, and condoned by leader Zack Polanski.

ITV’s undercover documentary exposes far more than the existence of a handful of old-school racists within Reform’s grassroots membership. It shows that mainstream-media journalists will stop at nothing in their anti-democratic crusade against populism. Such is their dedication to undermining Reform that they are pushing the public to move on from the anti-Semitism in the Green Party. This is unforgivable.

Joanna Williams is a spiked columnist. Her latest book, The Breaking of the Education Contract: Why we need to keep politics out of schools, is now available to purchase from Civitas.