Report: UK Labor candidate behind Facebook group defending alleged Holocaust deniers
Maria Carroll says left secretive group over anti-Semitism, her latest post dating back to May 2019
A Labor candidate in the 2019 general elections co-founded and ran a secret Facebook group focused on helping the party's members avoid allegations of anti-Semitism.
The allegations were presented on Sunday in a joint report by the Daily Mail, Labor Against Antisemitism group and Gnasherjew, researchers focused on left-wing antisemitism.
According to the probe, Labor's Maria Carroll, a Jeremy Corbyn supporter and a candidate in the 2019 general elections, co-founded and ran the Labor Party Compliance: Suspensions, Expulsions, Rejections Co-Op group on Facebook.
The group is said to be inaccessible via open search, with its membership list hidden from non-members.
The group allegedly advised Labor members on how to counter the allegations of anti-Semitism, with at least two alleged Holocaust deniers -- Alan Bull and Mollie Collins, both Labor activists, -- counseled on the matter.
The two were advised to delete all of their anti-Semitic posts but those posted in the secret group and to refuse to co-operate with a Labor probe unless the investigators shared all data the party had on them.
Wary of potential damage, Carroll sought to keep the group under the radar, posting: "REMINDER: Posts from this group are not to be shared."
She claims to have left the group some time after the 2016 Labor elections as it turned increasingly anti-Semitic, with her latest post there dating to May 2019.
After Jeremy Corbyn took over the Labor party in 2015, it has been mired in allegations of anti-Semitism, with a range of lawmakers resigning over the issue.