Members of the U.K. Labour Party could be facing criminal charges for posting anti-Semitic messages on social media, Daily Mail reported on Wednesday.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said on Tuesday that six people have been arrested or interviewed following a probe into social-media messages denying the Holocaust and inciting hatred against Jews. Four men and one woman who were Labour Party members have been referred to prosecutors, while another man remains under investigation.
Labour said three of the accused have left the party, but it is still trying to determine the identities of the other suspects.
Police launched the investigation after the London-based radio station LBC gave authorities in September 2018 an internal Labour Party dossier detailing alleged anti-Semitic messages by members. The dossier included the names of 21 Labour members, now reduced to five who are at risk of prosecution, according to Daily Mail.
The dossier revealed anti-Semitic social-media posts, public comments, written articles and more made by Labour members. The hateful remarks included “We shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all”; “be good these Jewish f**kers are the devils”; and another that said a “Zionist extremist MP who hates civilized [sic] people” was going to “get a good kicking.”
The file resulted in arrests in March in Birmingham, Kent, London, Gloucestershire and Yorkshire.
A Labour Party spokesperson said “anti-Semitism has no place in our society, and we are committed to challenging and campaigning against it in all its forms.”
