An employment solicitor who questioned the Tory leadership candidates during a televised debate has become the second member of the public to be suspended from their job over controversial historic social media comments.
Aman Thakar, who was the Labour Party candidate in Borough and Bankside in the Southwark local election last year, has been suspended with immediate effect by Leigh Day while the law firm investigates one of his previous tweets.
It is the latest fallout from the BBC debate, which the broadcaster has defended, after one of the other members of the public chosen to question the five candidates, imam Abdullah Patel, was suspended from his mosque and the school where he works amid controversy about his past comments on Israel.
Screenshots taken before Thakar made his Twitter account private showed he once suggested “Hitler’s abuse of the term nationalism is, to me a nationalist, the most harmful part of his legacy”.
Leigh Day said it was taking the tweet “very seriously”.
Thakar, who did not declare his previous Labour affiliation on screen, asked the candidates when they would call a general election after saying they would have “no mandate from the people”.
Patel, who asked the contenders about Islamophobia during a BBC debate on Tuesday evening, has been criticised for past tweets in which he said “every political figure on the Zionist’s payroll is scaring the world about Corbyn”.
He also shared an image endorsing the relocation of Israel to the US as a way of solving the Israel/Palestine conflict.
The BBC said Patel would not have been selected for the programme if it had been aware of his previous comments, and said his Twitter account had been deactivated ahead of his appearance – meaning the old tweets could not be read.
The executive members of the Masjid e Umar mosque in Gloucester said: “We have decided to act immediately and have chosen to give him some time away to allow us the opportunity to conduct a detailed investigation into this matter.
“This is the official stance of the mosque’s executive committee and we hope you respect our right to privacy as we conduct this deeply sensitive investigation.”
Al-Ashraf Primary School in Gloucester said in a statement posted on its website that it had suspended Patel, who is the deputy headteacher, from all school duties.
Yakub Patel, chairman of Al-Madani Educational Trust, said: “Following some of the comments attributed to Patel in the media this morning, the Trust has decided to suspend him from all school duties with immediate effect until a full investigation is carried out.
“The school and Trust do not share the views attributed to him.”
The BBC chose members of the public from across the UK to address Boris Johnson, Rory Stewart, Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid and Michael Gove via video link during the broadcast.
Home Secretary Javid said Patel should “practise what he preaches” and that words “do indeed have consequences”.
“All of us in public life have a duty to be vigilant for antisemitism & anti-Muslim prejudice. I never imagined we would see it rising in 21st century UK. Unlike the Labour leadership, which is itself part of the problem, my party takes that duty seriously,” he tweeted.
Rob Burley, who edited the programme, tweeted: “It was AFTER the show that Patel reactivated his account revealing his tweets.
“We wouldn’t have put him on the programme if these were public before broadcast, but they were not. We also carried out a number of other routine checks which didn’t uncover anything untoward.”