A senior figure in a right-wing organisation which has received support from several Conservative MPs has been criticised for recent comments about Adolf Hitler.

Candace Owens, a prominent conservative pundit and director of communications at Turning Point USA, defended the political ideology of nationalism by claiming Nazi Germany’s wartime leader wanted "globalism".

“I actually don’t have any problems at all with the word ‘nationalism’,” the 29-year-old told an audience in London in December. "I think that the definition gets poisoned by elitists that actually want globalism.

“Globalism is what I don't want. Whenever we say 'nationalism,' the first thing people think about, at least in America, is Hitler. You know, he was a national socialist, but if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine."

“The problem is that he wanted – he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalise. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German, everybody to look a different way. That's not, to me, that's not nationalism. In thinking about how we could go bad down the line, I don't really have an issue with nationalism. I really don't. I think that it's OK."

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A video of Ms Owens’ comments was shared on Twitter on Friday and quickly condemned by a number of high-profile figures.

Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, said “ignorance” about “Hitler’s evil regime must always be confronted".

“That burden should not fall on Holocaust survivors,” she said on Twitter. “There was nothing, using [Ms Owens’] own words, “great” about the Third Reich before it began annexing & invading its neighbors.”

Jewish historian David Perry wrote: “I'd like to assure you that the problem with Hitler wasn't that he wanted to conquer other places, but that he wanted to kill Jews, disabled folks, Roma, Communists, and others.”

Responding to criticism, Ms Owens said she was attempting to address the “really wrong” identification of Hitler with nationalism.

“He wasn’t a nationalist, he was a homicidal, psychotic, maniac who was bent on world domination outside the confines of Germany,” she said on social media platform Periscope.

Ms Owens' initial comments were during an event to promote Turning Point UK, an offshoot of its American cousin, which has links to Donald Trump’s administration and became notorious for creating a watchlist of “leftist” university professors that has drawn comparisons with McCarthyism.

Claiming to be the “biggest and most far-reaching youth organisation in America”, it says it espouses “freedom, free markets and limited government” and runs events sponsored by the National Rifle Association.

It has repeatedly denied racism accusations by former staff, and ejected several members following scandals over racial slurs.

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But a report by counter-extremism group Hope Not Hate said Turning Point USA was “mainstreaming extreme views”, including the “white genocide” conspiracy theory and Islamophobia.

Sharing a Turning Point recruitment video, Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg wrote: “People of all ages make up their own minds. The left has no monopoly on the ‘young’.”

Former international development secretary Priti Patel said the group represented a “new generation” of conservative values and fellow Tory MP Chris Green wrote: “Choose your side and I’m with Turning Point UK.”