Labour activists ‘targeting rivals with racist abuse’

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A CONSERVATIVE candidate standing against a former Labour MP who admitted invoking an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory says he is being targeted by activists accusing him of pledging “allegiance to Zion” and asking if he “eats children”.

Robert Largan, who is not Jewish, has faced a barrage of apparently racial abuse, including from Nick Longos, a former Labour councillor in High Peak, Derbyshire, where Mr Largan is standing against Ruth George. He also claims that he has been the subject of abuse in the street from Labour activists.

Mr Longos has been suspended by Labour, pending an investigation into his conduct. Ms George said she had also reported Mr Longos to the police.

The Sunday Telegraph can disclose that one activist helping to organise Ms George’s campaign shared a blog post in 2015 entitled “Jewish and Zionist influence at the BBC”, and claimed on Facebook that there were “convincing” indications of “Israeli support for Isis”.

In February, Ms George, who had been High Peak’s MP since 2017, apologised after suggesting that a group of seven MPs who quit Labour could have been secretly funded by Israel.

Earlier this year, Mr Largan, 31, started receiving messages on Twitter from Mr Longos, who was then a Labour High Peak councillor. Mr Largan has now submitted a dossier of screenshots to the Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitism in the UK. In the posts, Mr Longos refers to Mr Largan as “Bobby Largerman”.

The dossier, seen by the Telegraph, includes a post on July 6 in which Mr Longos, 71, said: “Is it true that ewe [sic] eat children or is this just a silly, salacious rumour, innit?” Mr Longos also posted pictures of Jelly Babies sweets, stating: “When are ewe gonna stop eat [sic] children of colour, innit?”

The dossier includes postings of an illustration of the wandering Jew, a character in Christian legend doomed to live forever because he taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion.

Mr Longos told this newspaper that he had sent the messages because he was “fed up with people like him going on about anti-Semitism”.

“There is no anti-Semitism in Derbyshire that I’m aware of,” he said. “I would be jumping up and down on it straight away if there was, because my children and my wife are Jewish.”

Addressing the illustration of the wandering Jew, he said: “How can it be offensive when it’s part of history? I thought I’d demonstrate to him that he’s got no understanding of history.”

Mr Largan says he has also faced slurs in the street from Labour activists. He claimed: “On the first Friday of the campaign, there was a group of Labour activists outside a train station and one told me that I’d sold my soul and pledged my allegiance to Zion. They were handing out Labour leaflets.”

Mr Largan, a chartered accountant, added: “It’s hard to really know what to make of all of it, other than it’s a bit scary that this is happening in 2019.

“It’s also started to happen on the doors. Several people have said on the doorstep, ‘Oh, you’re the Jewish guy, aren’t you?’ Someone seems to be going around saying that I’m Jewish.”

Kasey Carver, a Labour activist who apologised in April for Facebook posts from 2015 that adopted anti-Semitic tropes, is secretary of the High Peak Labour party and campaign coordinator of its Glossopdale branch.

In April, she stated that she had “been to anti-Semitism training” and was now “very much aware of the sensitivity” of her posts.

There is no suggestion that Ms Carver or Ms George are involved in abuse directed at Mr Largan. On Oct 31, Ms George, 49, claimed Ms Carver had “no role to play in my campaign team”.

A spokesman for Ms George said: “Ruth George previously reported Nick Longos’s unacceptable conduct to the Labour Party, which immediately suspended him, and she reported him to the police. He has not been involved in Ruth George’s campaign team.

“Robert Largan has not made any allegations to us about inappropriate conduct from local Labour activists.”

A Labour source added: “Robert Largan has made false and misleading claims about Ruth George’s campaign.”

‘It’s hard to really know what to make of all of it, other than it’s a bit scary that this is happening in 2019’