POLAND’S new anti-defamation laws have “opened the door” to normalising Holocaust denial, Labour’s Alex Sobel told MPs yesterday.

The Leeds North West MP led a debate drawing attention to the hard-right Warsaw government’s outlawing of references to Polish complicity in nazi crimes.

Mr Sobel said the “nationalist” laws “posed a threat” to proper historical understanding of the Holocaust. Poland’s government denies such claims.

However, Mr Sobel told the Star that the laws risk allowing anti-semites to “think that their abuse is acceptable.”

“I have personally received such abuse and I think the debate aired those issues here.

“The Polish anti-defamation laws have given licence to a widespread range of activity around the Holocaust — from a tirade of abuse against the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum to a lawsuit against an Argentinian newspaper.

“I hope the government takes up my concerns with their Polish counterparts at every opportunity.”