LAMBETH — The Metropolitan Police arrested two women standing as Green Party candidates in the Lambeth local elections on Thursday morning over alleged antisemitic social media posts. The women were identified as Saiqa Ali, a candidate for Streatham St Leonard's ward, and a candidate for Clapham Town.

"Police have arrested two women, aged 57 and 54, on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred online, an offence under section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986. They remain in police custody," the Metropolitan Police said in a statement on Thursday.

The arrests followed an investigation launched after concerns were reported to police on Tuesday 21 April about antisemitic material posted online. Screenshots indicated Ali posted an image of an armed man wearing a headband of the banned Islamist group Hamas along with the slogan "Resistance is freedom." Screenshots also indicated that the Clapham Town candidate shared a post including the text "Ramming a synagogue isn't antisemitism. It's revenge." Ali's Instagram account is set to private.

Ali issued an apology "for any offence or distress caused to anyone by my social media posts." The Lambeth Labour group accused Ali of sharing antisemitic posts that "repeat harmful tropes about Jewish people."

A Lambeth council notice of poll document recorded that Ali had a home address in Croydon and had been nominated to stand as a Green Party candidate. Archived records of the Lambeth Greens website described her as a community leader and founder of the Southern Women's Aid Network. References to her as a candidate were subsequently removed from the Lambeth Greens website.

The Clapham Town candidate was not mentioned on the Lambeth Greens website, although a notice of poll recorded her address in Lambeth. She has been involved in activism to save an estate marked for demolition in the borough.

Lambeth council is a longtime Labour stronghold, and the Green Party currently has four councillors on the authority. A multilevel regression and poststratification poll based on a survey of 2,022 Londoners conducted by JL Partners indicated the Green Party could take as much as 34% of the vote in the inner London borough and could emerge as the second-biggest political force there.