Labour drops prospective local election candidate after being alerted to his history of inflammatory social media comments, but Conservatives take him on

The Conservatives have endorsed a candidate in the local elections who was barred from running for Labour after the Party was alerted to his history of inflammatory activity on social media.

Shakeel Munir Hussain had hoped to run as a Labour candidate in Stockton-on-Tees in the coming local election as he has on previous occasions, but after being blocked by the Party, he is now running instead for the Conservatives in the Ropner ward.

Mr Hussain’s posts, shares and likes on Facebook allegedly include Rothschild conspiracy theories, comparisons of Israel to the Nazis, suggestions that Israel is in league with ISIS, and claims that “the world knows all too well that their governments are controlled by Zionist money” and that the Jews control American politics, all of which are antisemitic tropes.

Mr Hussain ran for the Labour Party in 2019 and 2021, before a member of the public drew the Party’s attention to his social media history. Most of that activity predates those elections and apparently was not picked up by the Party or was ignored. The Conservative Party has now committed the same error.

Campaign Against Antisemitism advocates for zero tolerance of antisemitism in public life. To that end we monitor all political parties and strive to ensure that any cases of concern are properly addressed.