Labour apparently tells former shortlisted candidate Michelle Harris she has no case to answer over Facebook posts

A barrister who was dropped as the Labour Party’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Hastings and Rye over social media posts has apparently been told by the Party that she has no case to answer.

Ms Harris, who is a barrister at London-based law firm One Pump Court, was said to have shared a number of offensive posts including an illustration showing a small barbed wire enclave entitled “Palestine” surrounded by Israel with a caricature of Benjamin Netanyahu saying: “It looks like a modern version of the Warsaw Ghetto”. Ms Harris allegedly commented alongside this: “I have often said the Holocaust victims who died with dignity must be turning in their graves at the horrors done in the name of Judaism. Gaza is a ghetto being shelled.”

Ms Harris is also alleged to have shared posts incorrectly claiming that the Israel Defence Force deliberately targets pregnant Palestinian women in order to kill their babies.

Writing on Facebook, Ms Harris commented: “The Labour Party has decided that there is no case to answer regarding the false allegations made about me and lifted my suspension.” She added that the allegations had been found both by the Bar Standards Board and the Labour Party to be “without merit” and even “fraudulent”.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Regulatory Enforcement Unit is seeking confirmation from the Bar Standards Board.