A Labour councillor and former parliamentary candidate has retweeted an antisemitic trope on his Twitter feed, and attacked people who pointed out its racist nature.

John Clarke, a Labour councillor in Essex and the party’s candidate for Witham at the 2015 last election, retweeted an image along with a caption which claimed that “the Rothschild family has been creating all the world’s money at interest [sic] for a couple of hundred years. They have used usury alongside modern Israel as an imperial instrument to take over the world and all of it’s [sic] resources, including you and I… and you have a problem with that, you’re an ‘anti-Semite’.”

Mr Clarke retweeted the picture, along with a comment saying “An oversimplified view of the world economy but containing a great deal of truth.”

When another Twitter user said that they were “afraid” to retweet the picture in case they were accused of being antisemitic, Mr Clarke replied “Antisemite smear in constant overuse as those who use it expand their powerbase.”

When another user retweeted his comment, calling him out on sharing antisemitic material, Mr Clarke responded by calling them “A so-called sympathetic #Labour ‘supporter playing the Antisemitic card against me.”

Yet another user pointed out that the account Mr Clarke had retweeted was virulently antisemitic and included a bio which said “There were no gas chambers, Hitler was right, protect our white culture”, Mr Clarke said he hadn’t looked at the account he was retweeting.

He added: “I acknowledge person who originally tweeted may well be antisemitic. My link 2 tweet wasn’t.”

When the same user said “Not trying to make a meal of this but if it says ‘Rothschild’ anti-semitism is always nearby”, Mr Clarke replied saying “Object to Rothschild and co. against their greed, monopolistic exploitations and unchecked power.”

Mr Clarke and the Labour party have been contacted for comment.