Revealed: George Galloway supporter battling to deliver a by-election shock in Batley and Spen is Holocaust denier and is axed from his campaign team
- Shammy Cheema openly used the term ‘holohoax’ in a Facebook post
- He also wrote that the Holocaust – in which six million Jews died during WWII – was ‘an exaggerated version of events to beg indefinite public sympathy’
- Last night, Mr Galloway dropped Mr Cheema from his campaign team, insisting that he ‘absolutely’ condemned antisemitism and Holocaust denial
- Mr Galloway made the statement just ten days after tweeting photo showing him enjoying breakfast with Mr Cheema at Morrisons supermarket in West Yorkshire
One of George Galloway’s supporters battling to deliver a by-election shock in Batley and Spen this week is a Holocaust denier, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Shammy Cheema openly used the term ‘holohoax’ in a Facebook post. He also wrote that the Holocaust – in which six million Jews died during the Second World War – was ‘an exaggerated version of events to beg indefinite public sympathy’.
Last night, Mr Galloway dropped Mr Cheema from his campaign team, insisting that he ‘absolutely’ condemned antisemitism and Holocaust denial.
Embarrassingly, he was forced to make the statement just ten days after tweeting a photograph showing him enjoying breakfast with Mr Cheema at a Morrisons supermarket in the West Yorkshire constituency.
One of George Galloway’s supporters battling to deliver a by-election shock in Batley and Spen this week is a Holocaust denier. Shammy Cheema used the term ‘holohoax’ in a Facebook post. Last night, Mr Galloway (l) dropped Mr Cheema from his campaign team, insisting he ‘absolutely’ condemned antisemitism and Holocaust denial. He made the statement just ten days after tweeting a photo showing him enjoying breakfast with Mr Cheema (r) at a Morrisons supermarket in the West Yorkshire constituency (above)
In the Facebook post in June 2019, Mr Cheema insisted that ‘I am not antisemitic’ but claimed ‘the holohoax… commonly referred as the holocaust’ was ‘the big fat Zionist cow that’s been milked for the last 80 years’. (Above, the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945)
However, the former Labour and Respect Party MP – who is standing in the by-election as the candidate for his Workers Party – sought to minimise the damage by insisting he could not be held responsible for the social media posts of more than 200 volunteers involved in his campaign.
In the Facebook post in June 2019, Mr Cheema insisted that ‘I am not antisemitic’ but claimed ‘the holohoax… commonly referred as the holocaust’ was ‘the big fat Zionist cow that’s been milked for the last 80 years’.
He added: ‘To whitewash Israeli crimes, label everyone antisemitic who oppose them.’
But the revelation comes amid claims of ‘thuggish’ and intimidating behaviour by some of Mr Galloway’s supporters, with a video circulating yesterday of Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater – sister of murdered Batley MP Jo Cox – being shouted at and chased to her car by a man demanding to know whether she supports LGBT education in schools because Muslim parents had concerns about it.
Mr Galloway insisted that the protester, later named as Shakeel Afsar, was nothing to do with his campaign.
Mr Galloway (above, at a rally in Batley town centre) said: ‘Antisemitism and Holocaust denial are pure poison. I absolutely condemn both’
But his claim that he was ‘unknown to us’ was challenged when a photograph emerged of them together at a protest in Birmingham in 2019.
The Batley and Spen by-election on Thursday, when Labour is defending a narrow 3,525 majority over the Tories, could decide the future of beleaguered party leader Sir Keir Starmer.
Insiders say that after the disaster of losing Hartlepool to the Conservatives in May, Sir Keir cannot afford to lose another Labour ‘Red Wall’ seat to Boris Johnson.
This newspaper revealed last week that a senior Labour official had admitted that the party was ‘haemorrhaging’ support among Batley and Spen’s key Muslim community – with pro-Palestinian campaigner Mr Galloway seen as the main beneficiary.
Some Muslim voters have suggested that Sir Keir has put too much emphasis on ridding the party of antisemitism and neglected their interests – a claim strongly rejected by Labour.
Last night, Mr Cheema said he understood he had ‘mistakenly strayed into using antisemitic tropes’ and that his language had been ‘insensitive’.
Mr Galloway said: ‘Antisemitism and Holocaust denial are pure poison. I absolutely condemn both.’
He said he had more than 200 campaign volunteers and ‘cannot be held responsible for their social media comments. Which candidate could be? I have fought antisemitism and Holocaust denial all my life – in Parliament, on radio and on television’.
Source: Read Full Article
