Sign up to FREE email alerts from KentLive - Daily Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

A candidate for Labour in the upcoming Tunbridge Wells Borough Council elections accused of sharing Facebook posts urging followers to "question the Holocaust" has been dropped by his party.

Roy Smart was going to fight for a seat in the Lib Dem stronghold of St James ward in the council's elections next month.

But Mr Smart was suspended today (April 2) after he was accused of sharing anti-Semitic posts and memes.

The Mirror reports that in one post from 2015 he shared a link to a site called HolocauseDeprogrammingCourse.com.

The site questions why Holocaust denial has been criminalised in some countries.

It asks: “Why make it illegal to question or investigate an event? Since when is it illegal to have an ‘opinion’?

The post urges readers to “Question the Holocaust!”

In another post from September 2017, Mr Smart wrote: “People being allowed to question if the Holocaust happened is not the same as being a Holocaust denier, any more than protesting about the Israeli government’s treatment of the Palestinians is anti-Semitic.”

Other posts he shared include conspiracy theories about the “Rothschilds Jewish mafia” being behind 9/11, “Jewish money” running the British government and a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu holding a dog with Donald Trump’s head, on top of a background which features the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Mr Smart confirmed he had been suspended, but declined to comment further.

A Labour Party spokesman said: “Labour takes all complaints of anti-Semitism extremely seriously, which are fully investigated and appropriate disciplinary action taken in line with our rules and procedures.

“Anti-Semitism has absolutely no place in the Party, and we are committed to challenging and campaigning against it all its forms.”

Mr Smart is no longer a candidate in May’s election, and a new candidate will be selected in his place.