Cllr Abbotts then shared a screenshot of the article her partner appeared to be referring to, an article republished on “Wintersonnenwende”, a website that tries to rehabilitate the image of Hitler and the Nazi regime.
The article put “The Holocaust” in quote marks and claimed that “Jewish leaders, in combination with powerful international Jewish financial interests" boycotted Germany "for the express purpose" of crippling the economy to bring down the Nazis.
It adds that Jewish people "effectively fired the first shot in the Second World War”, that the Nazis never planned to exterminate Jews and that “the leadership of the world Jewish community [having] formally declared war on Germany… the German authorities thus deemed Jews to be potential enemy agents.”
Ms George and local Labour group have continued to show full support for Cllr Abbotts despite this. Her election helped Labour take control of High Peak District Council with a majority of one.
High Peak CLP chair Fiona Sloman said the local party found "no evidence of antisemitism on Rachel’s part" after its own investigation and said she was "an active and vigorous campaigner for the Labour Party locally and we were delighted when she was elected as a councillor."
Writing to Ms George this week, JLM chair Mike Katz asked the MP - who was alerted to Cllr Abbotts' post in February and insisted she raised it at the time with the local and national party - "how you satisfied yourself" that Labour reached "an informed judgment on the case".
He also asked how she knew Labour's head office - which is now "urgently" investigating the matter - had received her complaint, something it denied having done when first contacted by the JC.
In a statement after the JC published its story, Cllr Abbotts said she was "“was deeply and sincerely sorry” for what she posted to Facebook, saying her partner "made some appalling arguments" and her "only involvement" in the conversation had been to post a screenshot of an article.
She said she was “in no way seeking to condone the abhorrent contents of that article – that the Jews started the war on Germany. This is an obviously wrong and clearly antisemitic claim.”
She also said her partner had been writing while “in an extremely vulnerable state, having just been diagnosed with a serious health issue, he used an argument he had heard which he did not understand but, after talking through, he realised that he was wrong.”
In May 2018, two years after the exchange, Mr Abbotts wrote: “Antisemite means to be against people who speak the semitic language [sic]. Guess what, Palestinians are semites. Now obviously the Zionists have twisted this language.”
He added: “The trouble with history is that things get changed by the winners…the trouble with Arkanasian [sic] Jews is they are from Europe…they have nothing to do with Israel.”
He also shared material about “the Rothschild conspiracy”.
Last August, Cllr Abbotts herself shared an article headlined: “Is Israel’s hand behind the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn?”
In his letter to Ms George Mr Katz said: “We expect real solidarity from Labour MPs when facing anti-Jewish racism, as we trust they would give to addressing any other form of hate or discrimination - which means calling it out clearly amongst our own membership whenever and wherever it occurs.”
He also asked the MP to "consider ways of showing solidarity now to Jewish Labour Party members and to the Jewish community; and what steps you are taking to demonstrate a much greater understanding of antisemitism."
