A councillor has been caught on camera claiming Hitler didn't have "a beef with the Jews" and that the holocaust was "massively overexaggerated"."

Peter Lawrence, of the far right party The British Democrats, told members of the anti-fascist group Cornwall Resists that, technically antisemitism, didn't exist, at a right wing "Great British Strike" rally in Truro on Saturday."

Mr Lawrence represents the British Democrats on Mylor Parish Council after he took the seat unopposed earlier this year.

Video footage shows Mr Lawrence answering "technically no" when asked whether antisemitism exists. "

It then captures him saying: "World Jewry declared war on Germany in the Second World War. They were bankrupting them from the Treaty of Versailles, they were blockading the food and everything. They were starving them out."

"The Jews, who are communist, were responsible for a lot of"

problems in the Weimar Republic, were frustrating the efforts of the restoration of the German people to have self-determination and to be ruled by the Germans.

"Hitler didn't have a beef with the Jews. He just didn't want them to disrupt what was going on."

When asked whether "Hitler was right to kill so many Jews", Lawrence replied: "I - and from what I've read and the revisionist historians who I have read cannot find a single order from Adolf Hitler calling for the execution of the Jews"."

When Lawrence was asked whether he believed in the Holocaust he replied: "The Holocaust has been massively over-exaggerated."

Cornwall Resists accused Mr Lawrence of being antisemitic and a holocaust denier.

A spokesperson for The British Democrats said: "The focus of our party, along with our elected councillors, is to work in communities to improve the lives of British people, and we have been successful in winning elections at local government level. The most recent by-election we won was in Maidstone, Kent, on 8th May, 2025. "

"Historians should be the ones to debate the past events, not political parties."

"The British Democrats advocate for a peaceful and positive nationalism to prevent and avoid human tragedies."