Labour's Stoke Central candidate attacked Corbyn on Twitter

The Labour candidate selected to run in the Stoke Central by-election had previously attacked his party's leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in a series of tweets last summer.

Councillor Gareth Snell described the Labour leader as an "IRA supporting friend of Hamas" during last year's leadership contest between Mr Corbyn and Owen Smith.

Mr Corbyn went on to win the leadership contest in September last year.

In a series of tweets on July 18, Mr Snell tweeted: "Smith learnt politics in the heat of the fight in South Wales. Corbyn sipped tea in trendy north London with career politician and Viscount."

Later, he added: "For clarity, my previous comments were to demonstrate the absurdity of the hyperbole I've read in the last two hours."<

Borough councillor Mr Snell also once tweeted that Brexit was a "massive pile of s**t".

Stoke, where he is running for election, voted overwhelmingly to leave with almost 70% of voters backing Brexit.