A former Labour council leader has expressed dismay over the failure of the national party’s high command to take disciplinary action against an activist who was twice turned down as a council candidate over allegedly antisemitic Facebook posts – 21 months after she first tried to refer the case for investigation.

The activist, Mohammed Joynal Uddin, was rejected by a panel considering potential candidates to stand as councillors for Camden council in June 2017, after they examined a Facebook post in which he claimed the Talmud, the body of Jewish civil and ceremonial law and legend, said Jesus was “boiling in semen in hell and that the Virgin Mary is a whore”.

Uddin, who denied last week to the Observer that he was antisemitic, then appealed against the decision to Labour’s London region, but was turned down again because of the same concerns.

With Labour already embroiled in controversy over antisemitism at the time, the then leader of Camden council, Sarah Hayward, says she submitted a complaint about the Facebook post to the party in June 2017. In spring 2018, Hayward forwarded other Facebook posts involving Uddin. Since then she has heard nothing more about the case.

When contacted for comment, Uddin said he had not been told by the national party of any action against him but had simply been questioned about his Facebook activity in the summer of 2018. In a letter to the party on 21 July 2018, he said he believed in “freedom of expression” and did not think he had contravened any party rules.

Uddin told the Observer: “I am not suspended and have not been told of any disciplinary action against me. I am still a member of the Labour party. I am not antisemitic.”

Hayward said she was very frustrated at the way the party had taken so long to deal with the case and that it was understandable why so many people now thought Labour was institutionally antisemitic. “In June 2017, nearly two years ago, I complained about a member sharing antisemitic material on social media,” she said.

“After chasing the party for action, I supplied further and more recent evidence in May 2018. I have heard nothing since. It seems there’s no way to get action in antisemitism cases unless they get in to the public domain and this is no way to run a disciplinary process. It’s no surprise to me that the party is being accused of institutional antisemitism.”

News of the case follows revelations in this newspaper last weekend that members of Labour’s high command opposed recommendations to suspend several party members accused of antisemitism, despite Jeremy Corbyn’s repeated insistence that Labour would show “zero tolerance for antisemites”. Emails dating from March to May last year showed that an official acting on behalf of the general secretary, Jennie Formby, opposed recommendations from the party’s investigations team to suspend several members accused of antisemitism. The official has since been identified as Thomas Gardiner.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ilford North Labour MP Wes Streeting says the party’s system for dealing with antisemitism is ‘broken’. Photograph: Richard Gardner/REX/Shutterstock

It has emerged that at the time Uddin appealed against his original rejection to stand as a council candidate he received a letter of support from Gardiner who, the following year, became head of Labour’s compliance unit which is now looking into Uddin’s case. In the letter, Gardiner said that he had campaigned with Uddin, did not know why he had been rejected, and praised his “long and loyal record” as a Labour party member.

Labour said last night that the party had not received Hayward’s original complaint. However, she insists she sent it to the appropriate address and has a record of the correspondence.

Labour sources also insisted that Gardiner had had no reason to know why Uddin had been turned down in 2017 because details were not made public. He had never been a friend of Uddin’s on Facebook. They also said Gardiner had “recused himself” from the current investigation into his case which started in 2018 and which remained ongoing. Another Labour source involved in the party in Camden said, however: “It seems extraordinary that Gardiner was prepared to write a character reference for Uddin without first trying to find out the reasons why he was rejected. It was hardly a secret among those involved with the local party.”

Wes Streeting, the Labour MP for Ilford North, said: “This case exemplifies how broken the Labour party’s system for dealing with cases of antisemitism has become. Here you have a highly respected former leader of Camden Council submitting complaints about someone whose conduct has been considered twice by panels considering people for public office and on both occasions they have reached the same conclusion.

“It beggars belief that there has been no formal reprimand or sanction and certainly none of the ‘zero tolerance’ the party claims it is so determined to demonstrate in such cases.”

A Labour spokesperson said: “The Labour party takes all complaints of antisemitism extremely seriously and we are committed to challenging and campaigning against it in all its forms. All complaints about antisemitism are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures and any appropriate disciplinary action is taken.”Last week Britain’s equality watchdog said it believed Labour may have “unlawfully discriminated against people because of their ethnicity and religious beliefs” as it announced the first step of a statutory inquiry into the party’s handling of antisemitism complaints. The party said it would cooperate with the regulator, while its deputy leader, Tom Watson, called on party officials to ensure no emails or records were deleted.