The Scottish National Party has suspended one of their candidates who was likely to take a seat from Labour over allegedly antisemitic social media posts.

Neale Hanvey had been expected to take the Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath seat in December’s election until his posts came to light.

This comes after Scottish Labour candidate for Falkirk Safia Ali was deselected as a candidate after the party was informed of antisemitic posts on her old facebook page, which had escaped her vetting process.

The Conservative Party also had to suspend a Scottish candidate Ryan Houghton last week over historic antisemitic posts.

In a statement after he was suspended, Mr Hanvey said he had circulated an article in 2016 from Russian state news agency Sputnik about George Soros, illustrated with an image showing him holding puppets of world leaders.

He also admitted to posting a message that “drew parallels between the treatment of Palestinians and the unconscionable treatment of Jews in Europe during WW2”, in “direct contravention of the IHRA definition of antisemitism.”

Mr Hanvey added that “I am genuinely and deeply sorry.

“However upsetting this is for me, I fully support the decision of the National Secretary to suspend me.

“The First Minister has called for leadership on this issue and she is absolutely right to take a zero tolerance approach.”

“Antisemitism has no place in Scotland and no place in the SNP,” Kirsten Oswald, the SNP’s business convener, told the Guardian. “All political parties have a duty to show leadership, and to take tough action.”