East London council candidate suspended over antisemitic social media posts

Tower Hamlets Council’s ruling Aspire Party has suspended one of its candidates standing in next week’s local election because of antisemitic social media posts.

Facebook posts by Abul Monsur – an Aspire candidate in Lansbury ward, Poplar – included Holocaust denial and apparent approval of Adolf Hitler.

Monsur said Aspire had suspended him after the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) contacted him and the party about the posts.

He said he was “deeply sorry for these social media posts and ashamed of them”.

Aspire said it was not aware of the posts when it chose Monsur as a candidate and is “reviewing how we can improve social media checks”.

Monsur published a string of antisemitic posts to his Facebook page throughout 2025.

These included posts that appeared to doubt the existence of the Holocaust.

On 30th May 2025, Monsur posted an image of a “Zionist victim card” in which the word “Holocaust” was crossed out and replaced with “Holohoax”.

A post on also asserted that “there is NO mention of a ‘Holocaust’ in papers written after WW2 by Churchill, Eisenhower, and De Gaulle”.

It also referred to “Jews gaining control of the media”.

Monsur appeared to show approval of Hitler in a post from September, referencing antisemitic conspiracy tropes about Jews, greed and finance.

He wrote: “ADOLF HITLER OUTLAWED USURY (INTEREST – MAKING MONEY WITH MONEY)” followed by three “bullseye” emojis.

Monsur responded in the same way to a comment below the post claiming that “Usury is the tool of the devil (Zionist) that is currently running the world”, and that “the main reason the Jews conspired to kill Jesus was that he was against usury”.

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He also added his own comment: “ADOLF Hitler must have agreed with Islam that Usury is bad?”
In his posts, he claims the neo-Nazi BNP was “destroyed” because it refused to take money from “Zionist lobbies” to “focus on 2 things only: (1) Islam (thus all Muslims) and (2) Not talk about the banking system (owned or controlled by them Zionists).”
Other posts mirror antisemitic tropes historically associated with the far right alleging Jewish control of the media and politicians.

A post on 1st May alleged that “six Jewish billionaires own 90 per cent of the media” while another on 3rd October that “politicians and political establishments in both USA and UK are controlled by powerful Zionist lobbies”.

These included suggesting that “Zionists” were responsible for the antisemitic massacre at Bondi Beach in Australia last year, the assassination of right wing American activist Charlie Kirk and that of former US president John F Kennedy.

Monsur asked if Judaism had “infiltrated Christianity” and in a separate post suggested angrily that “Europe has the values of [Jewish religious text] the Talmud”.

Monsur and Aspire were contacted for comment after an independent candidate in another ward, Andrew Wood, brought his Facebook profile to the attention of the LDRS.

In response, Monsur said: “I am deeply sorry for these social media posts and ashamed of them.

I apologise from the bottom of my heart to Jewish people in our community and in wider society.

“These social media posts were unacceptable and I have a lot of learning to do and I will undertake training and education.

I was not thinking straight and did not understand a lot of what I posted.”
He added: “I have been suspended from the Aspire Party, party’s investigation and disciplinary process [sic].

I agree with that decision and I am deeply sorry to Aspire and to all the party’s supporters.”
Aspire told the LDRS it was not aware of Monsur’s posts, which were public and prolific.

A spokesperson said: “The party had no idea about these appalling and unacceptable posts and once informed, took immediate action.

“Abul Monsur has apologised for not disclosing this to the Party when he was asked about social media accounts during candidate vetting, and we apologise and are extremely regretful that this was not found in due diligence checks.

They added: “We are reviewing how we can improve social media checks to make them as thorough as possible to ensure this mistake can never happen again.”
Elections for Tower Hamlets councillors are set to take place next Thursday, May 7, with results expected on Saturday May 9.

Monsur will still appear on the ballot paper as an Aspire candidate as the deadline for withdrawals has passed.

The LDRS has asked him and Aspire what he will do if he is elected.