The public broadcaster has been left severely embarrassed after basic checks on two of those who quizzed the Conservative leadership hopefuls revealed the extraordinary background of those participating in the programme. One questioner, Aman Thakar, previously worked for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party investigating anti-Semitism, while another had made anti-Israeli remarks on social media. A letter from Labour’s Acting Head of Disputes, Nareser Osei, in October 2018 states: “The General Secretary has appointed Aman Thakar, Legal Assistant, to arrange conduct of the Party’s own investigation.”

When Express.co.uk phoned the BBC for comment on Mr Thakar’s political allegiance, the corporation said it would only answer inquiries made by email.

However, according to The Times’ Henry Zeffman, the BBC knew in advance Mr Thakar worked for the Labour Party but chose not to inform either the candidates or the public watching the programme in last night’s debate.

Defending the BBC on Twitter, the organisation’s Editor of Live Political Programmes said the debate was balanced as “there were also self-described Conservatives on the programme”.

Since appearing on the show controversial tweets sent by Mr Thakar have also emerged.

In February the BBC debate participant wrote on social media: “Hitler’s abuse of the term nationalism is, to me, a nationalist, the most harmful part of his legacy.”

He has since been suspended by his current employer Leigh Day Solicitors.

A Leigh Day spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Aman Thakar is currently a solicitor at Leigh Day in our employment department.

“We have been made aware of a tweet which we are taking very seriously. Mr Thakar has been suspended with immediate effect from the firm whilst we carry out an internal investigation into these matters.”

In a second embarrassing blunder for the broadcaster, Imam Abdullah Patel, appeared on the programme despite posting anti-Israel messages on Twitter.

In tweets unearthed by the Guido Fawkes website, Mr Patel wrote: “Every Political figure on the Zionist’s payroll is scaring the world about Corbyn. They don’t like him. He seems best suited to tackle them!”

After Mr Abdullah’s tweets were uncovered, the corporation said in a statement: “We carried out background research into the online and social media profiles of all our questioners for last night’s debate.

“Following the debate, one individual reactivated a public Twitter account he has previously deactivated, whose tweets were not visible during our research period.

“Had we been aware of the views he expressed there he would not have been selected.”

Nicky Campbell, who had Abdullah Patel on his breakfast show on BBC Radio 5 Live this following the live TV debate, said the imam had made “extremely disturbing” remarks on Twitter, and that he was “sorry” the broadcaster had not checked beforehand.

Mr Campbell tweeted: “I would like to apologise. We had the Imam from the BBC Tory leadership debate on our programme this morning.

“His social media comments have been extremely disturbing. We should have checked. We didn’t. I’m sorry.”

Mr Patel has been suspended from his job as a deputy head teacher at Al-Ashraf Primary School following the uncovering of his tweets.

Yakub Patel, chairman of the al-Madani Educational Trust, said: “Following some of the comments attributed to Mr Patel in the media this morning, the Trust has decided to suspend him from all school duties with immediate effect until a full investigation is carried out.

“The school and Trust do not share the vies attributed to him.”

The Labour Party have been contacted for comment regarding Mr Thaker’s employment.

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