A LABOUR councillor has been criticised by a TV presenter for posting a link to an allegedly anti-Semitic article on social media.

On Monday morning, BCP councillor Lisa Lewis retweeted a Dorset Eye article which said Countdown star Rachel Riley was “working for the Israeli state propaganda machine”.

The newly-elected West Southbourne representative, who earlier this year said she was 15 per cent Jewish, was criticised by Ms Riley on Twitter for posting the “racist” link.

The Dorset Eye article was published in support of left-wing news outlet The Canary following Ms Riley, who has been a vocal critic of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, welcoming the news that, what she called, the “hyper-partisan fake news website” was having to downsize.

In response, a Dorset Eye article said she was a “fascist” and an “Israeli state terrorist sympathiser”.

“For a while now, Rachel Riley has been working – not so clandestinely – for (or with) the Israeli state propaganda machine,” it says.

“The attempt has been to lie and deceive people into believing that Jeremy Corbyn, and those media who seek to stand up to the hate and lies of right-wing Zionists and terror supporters against Palestinian women, men and children are anti-Semitic.

“Whether she is paid for her hate and propaganda is not for me to say.” but she is obviously a fascist and an Israeli terrorist sympathiser”.

The article adds that Ms Riley “and her goons” will be to blame “only have themselves to blame “if some loose cannon stoops to another loathsome low”, referring to the murder of MP Jo Cox.

Cllr Lewis, who is the deputy leader and chief whip of the three-strong Labour group on the council, did not respond to requests from the Local Democracy Reporting Service for comment.

However, group secretary, Patrick Canavan, said: “There is no place for anti-Semitism in our movement. Hatred towards Jewish people is rising in many parts of the world and we will continue to do our utmost to drive this out and to eliminate it from our movement.

“Unfortunately there are those who seek to exaggerate and distort the scale of the problem within the Labour Party. Some do this to attack us and undermine our efforts to get rid of this Tory government.

“Irrespective of what various groups and individuals may say on social media, the Labour Party is resolute in its determination to confront bigotry and discrimination wherever it arises.”

But, speaking shortly after her election in May, Cllr Lewis said she was 15 per cent Jewish and that none of her Jewish friends in the Labour Party had “ever encountered any anti-Semitism”. “I don’t know anybody in the Labour Party who has encountered any anti-Semitism but I think it could be possible that there are various pockets of it,” she said. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism includes “making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising or stereotypical allegations about Jews or the power of Jews as a collective”, including the conspiracy of Jews controlling societal institutions.