A LABOUR candidate is understood to be under investigation by party chiefs, after a series of Facebook posts were uncovered.

Kate Linnegar, Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for North Swindon, has found herself in the media spotlight.

Westminster blog Guido Fawkes has published messages that appear to show Ms Linnegar sharing articles that talk of “Holocaust-mongers” and another defending Jackie Walker, who was stripped of her Labour membership over anti-Semitism accusations. The posts were shared to the Swindon People’s Assembly Facebook page in 2016 by Ms Linnegar.

Coun Carol Shelley, chairman of the North Swindon Labour Party, said: “The Labour Party takes these sorts of accusations very seriously. We have referred the matter to our regional office.”

The Swindon Advertiser understands the messages have been referred up to the NEC, the Labour Party’s governing executive. The Labour Party has said it does not comment on internal matters.The south west Labour office has not responded to our request for comment.

Ms Linnegar faces dissent from her own members in Swindon.

One Labour member in the town said: “I was disgusted to see the comments and shocked that any Labour Party member would hold such views about the holocaust, let alone a Parliamentary Candidate. If the investigation finds that they were her posts, she has to leave the party. No excuses.”

The latest allegations are the second to hit Labour’s Kate Linnegar this week. On Tuesday, news websites published screenshots of Twitter messages posted on Swindon People’s Assembly social media page.

The posts targeted Zionists, those who support the setting-up of a Jewish homeland in Israel. The 2016 posts talk of “another Zion slave” and describe Zionists as “fake Jews”.

Following that story, Ms Linnegar told the Advertiser: The Twitter account was set up when we started Swindon People’s Assembly some years ago. The person running it was so inactive at tweeting that we forgot it even existed. We haven’t seen this person at Swindon People’s Assembly for a long time.

“When we were alerted to what had been tweeted, we asked the person to delete it as the views were not those of Swindon People’s Assembly, me or the Labour Party. This person is not a Labour Party member.”

A review by former human rights charity boss Shami Chakrabarti into anti-Semitism and other racism allegations in 2016 made 20 recommendations. Jeremy Corbyn, leader, admitted this year that full implementation of the recommendations was overdue.

Responding to the posts on the Swindon People’s Assembly pages, Euan Philipps of Labour Against Antisemitism said: “Labour is in the middle of an antisemitism crisis and any prospective candidate has to show that they are willing to stand against racism towards Jewish people.”