The frontrunner to succeed Heidi Alexander as a Labour MP has withdrawn from the contest after it emerged that she equated the treatment of Palestinians to “Nazi persecution” on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, a far-Left supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, claimed that the Israel-Palestine conflict should be considered alongside the systematic extermination of more than six million Jews during the Holocaust.

The Telegraph understands that she was one of several candidates due to be shortlisted by senior Labour officials for the upcoming Lewisham East by-election, which was triggered last week after Ms Alexander quit to join City Hall as the London deputy mayor for transport.

The decision to impose a shortlist of candidates on the local party had enraged Labour members in Lewisham, who claimed that the National Executive Committee had been engaged in a “stitch-up” to ensure a Corbyn-backing candidate was chosen.

It has since emerged that Ms Opoku-Gyimah claimed on Holocaust Memorial Day last year that the treatment of the “Palestinian” should also be remembered alongside other genocides, including in Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda and Darfur.”