The Green Party has launched an investigation after being handed a dossier suggesting MP candidates shared antisemitic slurs and conspiracy theories online.
Last night, the party had staff looking into files of nearly 20 general election candidates who have shared horrific material online, according to The Times.
previously revealed Joe Belcher, who is standing in the Aldridge-Brownhills seat in the West Midlands, authored posts blasting ‘Jew lovers’.
He was later suspended by the party and stopped from standing for parliament.
Now it has emerged that other candidates have posted similar – and in some cases arguably worse – material online, including claims that the October 7 attacks were a ‘false flag’ orchestrated by Israel.
Adam Pugh, the candidate for Deptford and Lewisham North in London, posted ‘I hope [Royal Navy Ships] sink’ with a prayer emoji when it was announced they were being sent to support Israel.
Extraordinarily, when three other candidates were accused of antisemitism, he posted: ‘Either they haven’t discovered my tweets yet, or I’m not being vocal enough.’
A spokesman for the party told The Times the allegations were ‘serious and are being treated as such’.
They went on to say the final candidate list is still being decided before the deadline at 5pm today.
The tide of antisemitism accusations stemmed from controversy which erupted at the May local elections.
Green Party councillor Mothin Ali, who won in a ward in Leeds, said Palestinians has the right to ‘fight back’ – referring to the October 7 massacre.
He shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ after being elected to a city council, boasting it had made him ‘infamous’.
Ali claimed he was being made a ‘scapegoat’ to distract from ‘war crimes’ being committed in Gaza.
His unapologetic appearance at a small rally in his native Leeds – shared on his social media channels – came after British Jewish leaders accused the Green Party of ‘hypocrisy’ for not suspending him over his ‘extremist nonsense’.
Amid fears of a rise in sectarian politics fuelled by the crisis in the Middle East, former Labour Cabinet minister Lord Mandelson accused the Greens of becoming a ‘dustbin’ for ‘disgruntled hard-leftists’.
Ali later apologised and clarified that he doesn’t support violence. However, this was only the beginning.
On October 7, another candidate, Pugh, wrote: ‘You don’t have to be neutral when it comes to apartheid, colonisation and genocide, I don’t care what anyone says. I promise you, you don’t.’
also found a quote tweet by Pugh where he shared a post by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on the six month anniversary of October 7.
Pugh commented: ‘There is no ‘war’ in Gaza. Israel are committing genocide and you are enabling them, you despicable terrorist sympathiser.’
In January, he posted: ‘I want David Cameron (among others) to be chased to the ends of the earth for their complicity in this GENOCIDE of the Palestinian people.
‘May these people never know peace or rest.’
Nida Alfulaij, the Green candidate for Brent East, west London, liked posts implying that and the United States – not Hamas – were terrorists.
Kefentse Dennis is the Green equalities and diversity co-ordinator and candidate in Birmingham’s Perry Barr constituency,.
He shared a video on X of a Palestinian protest at a remembrance march at Auschwitz.
He said: ‘It’s because #NeverAgain means NEVER AGAIN.’
And the candidate for Woking, Nataly Anderson, commented on a conspiracy theory post said it was ‘odd’ there was a nationwide testing of phones 48 hours before October 7.
She said: ‘The whole thing is very orchestrated, isn’t it?’
Another disturbing post read: ‘We are seeing links between the institutional kidnapping of children and the state of Israel. It is very unfortunate that the victims of the Holocaust turn into the predators.’
Meanwhile, Belcher, who is standing in the Aldridge-Brownhills seat in the West Midlands, posted links to pages about ‘Rothschild bankers’.
He shared a link to a video by controversialist David Icke, suggesting Jeremy Corbyn might be a ‘saviour [who is] going to turn the country around to a more fair and just society’ before he became leader of the Labour Party.
He also suggested Israel or the West ‘conspired’ to pay Hamas for the tragic events of October 7.
It emerged this week that he has been suspended by the party and prevented from standing for parliament, according to the Jewish Chronicle.
Another candidate, Naseem Talukdar, was also prevented from standing by the party after an internal investigation into social media posts.
The Bristol East candidate had posted photographs comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Adolf Hitler, writing ‘it’s becoming really hard to spot the difference’.
Eilzabeth Waight, who was the Green Party candidate for Bethnal Green and Stepney, decided to withdraw after it emerged she had posted an Instagram video in which a woman said: ‘What’s left for the Zionists [is] to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Palestinians.’
She apologised and said she had been ‘made aware of the connotations of anti-antisemitism’.
Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kunessberg, co-leader Adrian Ramsay confirmed that at least three candidates won’t stand at the general election due to ‘inappropriate comments’ and ‘a small number more who are still being looked at’.
A spokesman for the Campaign Against Antisemitism told The Times: ‘The more that we learn about Green Party candidates and newly-elected councillors, the more concerned we become.
‘There appears to be an obsession with Israel and Gaza, comparing the Jewish state to Nazis, justifying the barbaric October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas, an antisemitic terror organisation, labelling Zionism as ‘cancer’ and antisemitism-denial. How is this fostering good communal relations?’
Yesterday, reported The Green Party’s deputy leader is a former Harley Street hypnotist who once claimed he could help women increase the size of their breasts, it emerged today.
Zack Polanski, who has been helping lead the party’s 2024 general election campaign, told one client to picture herself with bigger breasts as part of a treatment.
The former Extinction rebellion activist also said that the system could become ‘popular very quickly, because it’s so safe and a lot cheaper than a boob job.’
The comments were made in a 2013 Sun newspaper feature unearthed by the Daily Telegraph. The Londoner later apologised for his comments to a local news website, saying that he had not been paid for the service but did it for free.
When he was running as the Green candidate at the 2019 election in Cities of London and Westminster seat he told the South West Londoner: ‘I think it’s important to say that I’ve apologised. If it was 2019, I would not have done that article and if I had, I would have been stronger to condemn it,’ he told the website.
‘The apology is to recognise that issues of misogyny and women’s body confidence exist in society and articles like that in The Sun are not helpful.’
In the Sun article he said he was ‘looking to utilise the unconscious process to make changes to the body.
‘We do know that whatever is changing is ecological, so if it’s changing one thing – such as the size of a person’s breasts – it’s making sure that the whole system is changing in order to support it,’ he added.
The reporter said he asked her to ‘picture myself with bigger boobs’, and added: ‘Imagine you’re in a movie. I want you to make the image bigger and brighter so it fills the screen. Now step it up and feel what it’s like having your new breasts. Are you walking differently? Do you look happy?’