A Green Party local election candidate has been arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred for allegedly posting antisemitic content on social media.
The Metropolitan Police arrested two women, one confirmed as one of the party’s candidates, on Thursday morning.
The force said they were detained under the Public Order Act after they received a report last Tuesday.
The posts, seen by The Telegraph, are alleged to have included comments from one of the women such as “ramming a synagogue isn’t antisemitism, it’s revenge.”
A now-deleted post from one of the women also claimed the government was overrepresented with “Zionist Jews”, and another allegedly included a picture of a serpent marked with the Star of David choking the world.
The Met Police said: “Police have arrested two women, aged 57 and 54, on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred online, an offence under section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986.
“They remain in police custody. The arrests follow an investigation launched after concerns were reported to police on Tuesday, 21 April about antisemitic material that had been posted online.”
A Green Party spokesperson said: “This is now a police matter. We won’t be commenting at this stage."
The arrests came hours after two Jewish men were stabbed in an alleged terror attack in Golders Green.
The stabbings are the latest in a series of attacks on the Jewish community in northwest London in recent weeks and have prompted calls for urgent action, as well as accusations that the government has not done enough to tackle antisemitism.
The government has said a further £25m will be invested to increase security for Jewish communities after the suspected terror attack.
The funding will be aimed at boosting police patrols and protections around synagogues, schools and community centres, taking the total commitment this year to £58m.
The prime minister was heckled as he arrived at a Jewish community ambulance centre in Golders Green on Thursday.
Speaking later in an address to the nation, Sir Keir said events like Golders Green “keep happening” as he called on Britons to tackle antisemitism.
“At moments like this, we often say, this is not Britain, that these attacks are an affront to British values, to British tolerance, British decency. But they keep happening, don’t they?” he said.
“And so today, instead, I will simply say that our values are not a gift handed down generation to generation. They are something we earn each day through action. They come from us.
“Antisemitism is an old, old hatred, history shows that the roots are deep, and if you turn away, it grows back. Yet, far too many people in this country diminish it. They either don’t see it or they don’t want to see it.”
