SENIOR members of the Harlow Conservative group have expressed their outrage over the use of the term “Jewish Final Solution” by a member of the Harlow Labour Party.

Brett Hawksbee used the term in a personal blog called tridentine2013.tumblr.com.

Mr Hawksbee was a Labour candidate for Lower Nazeing in the Epping Forest District Elections of 2018. He has become known as a prominent supporter of Harlow Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate, Laura McAlpine.

His blogs cover a variety of subjects including Jeremy Corbyn, Carillion, North Korea, Robert Halfon, social mobility and Israel. In a blog published two years ago titled “One Man’s Terrorist” he discusses the matter of anti-semitism.

The blog states: “The fear of many on the left is that the ideological successors of the bombers of the King David Hotel, the mass murderers who decimated Deir Yassin, would be quite happy to see a pogrom in Gaza and the West Bank, a Jewish final solution to the Palestine problem”.

This comment has inflamed the Harlow Conservatives.

Leader of Harlow Conservatives, Cllr Andrew Johnson, said: “I’m shocked that a leading Harlow Momentum organiser who stood as the Labour Party candidate for Lower Nazeing used the term ‘a Jewish final solution to the Palestine problem’ in one of his many blogs about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“This kind of language has no place in our society whatsoever. His comments draw a deeply worrying parallel with the ‘final solution to the Jewish question’ pursued by the Nazi Party.

“It is extremely offensive to use these words and it will cause the Jewish community a great deal of distress.

“Brett Hawksbee is a close colleague, supporter and organiser for the Labour Parliamentary Candidate in Harlow, I urge Laura McAlpine to condemn these comments without equivocation. The campaign group Momentum and the Labour Party should expel Brett Hawksbee without hesitation.”

YH asked Mr Hawksbee the following questions.

“Now that you have quite a prominent role closely associated with the PPC, do you feel you need to modify some of the language that you use?

For example, reference to a “Jewish final solution” in one blog. There are Jewish people who take offence at that. Is that something you can empathise with?

Mr Hawksbee replied: “I believe that the time has come for mindful and measured language on all sides, and that the issue of the day is now getting rid of this harmful and nationally debilitating ‘Coalition of Chaos'”.

The issue co-incides not only with a national debate within the Labour ranks regarding anti-semitism but also locally.

Two questions have been submitted for next week’s Harlow Council meeting on the subject.

YH has contacted Ms McAlpine but she has yet to respond.