Ashuk Ahmed will no longer run for the British parliament now that his antisemitic social media posts have been exposed. PHOTO: Twitter.

Britain’s Liberal Democrat Party has suspended one of its candidates in the forthcoming June 8 General Election over a series of virulently antisemitic posts on social media.

Ashuk Ahmed had been due to challenge the incumbent Labour Member of Parliament, Gavin Shuker, in the Luton South constituency near London when his posts were exposed by the UK Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA). After party officials were confronted with the evidence by the Mail Online website, a spokesman confirmed: “You sent us the email with the screenshots at 11:55 and we suspended Mr. Ahmed at 11:56. Mr Ahmed’s utterances have no place in the party. We believe in a politics that is open, tolerant and united.”

Ahmed’s social media posts pushed core antisemitic tropes. Image: Campaign Against Antisemitism

The CAA’s sift through Ahmed’s social media outbursts revealed a penchant for conspiracy theories and traditionally antisemitic stereotypes. Included, the CAA report said, was “the conspiratorial charge that ISIS is a Jewish invention whose horrors are propagated by the ‘Jewish media and their gentile pawns’ in order to ‘justify more slaughter. He described these conspiracy theories as the ‘truth about ISIS.’ One of the conspiracy theory videos shared by Ahmed was by ‘Humanity United against AshkeNAZI,’ an extreme antisemitic group which claims to ‘expose…the current take over of the united states by the jewish ashkenazi tribe.'”

According to the CAA, Ahmed further claimed that “Zionists control half the world,” told racist jokes in which Jews spitefully spit on Arabs’ clothes and urinate in their drinks, claimed “Jewish democracy” means bloodlust, wrote that the Labour and Conservative Parties are in the grip of their “Zionist paymasters” and painted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with blood dripping from his mouth while feasting on a Palestinian child. This last image evokes the medieval “blood libel” which falsely accused Jews of using the blood of non-Jewish children in their religious rites.

Ahmed previously stood as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Luton South in 2015, finishing in fourth place behind Labour, the Conservatives and UKIP, the pro-Brexit party. Long established as the third party in British politics, the Liberal Democrats were roundly defeated nationally in 2015, trailing both the Scottish nationalists and UKIP in the final tally.

Concerns about Ahmed’s activities stretch back almost three years. In 2014, local police interviewed him about the antisemitic posts, which are illegal under British law, but did not press charges. Ahmed has not yet been removed from his position on a local police advisory group.

In 2010, Ahmed received a British Community Honours Award at the House of Lords naming him as an “inspirational role model for British Muslims as part of mainstream society” who improved “social cohesion.” The previous year, he was awarded the MBE for his community work.