Liverpool MP blasts ‘disgraceful’ Ken Livingstone over Hitler and anti-Semitism row

Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has been suspended from the Labour Party after making controversial comments about Adolf Hitler’s policy towards Jews, the Guardian reported on Thursday.

Ealing Conservative leader Cllr Greg Stafford, who represents the Hanger Hill ward, said he has written to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to call for MP Huq to be suspended.

She said the row about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party highlighted a broader and deeply worrying trend nationally of growing intolerance towards minority groups. “We can work together to tackle the problem, and we have to if we’re going to avoid long-term reputational damage”. In 2005, he attacked journalist Oliver Finegold, asking him whether he was “a German war criminal”.

The controversy also comes less than two months before Britons decide whether to stay in the European Union, with polls showing the outcome of the June 23 referendum remains hard to call.

David Cameron also waded into the row.

Louise Ellmann, who was chair of the Jewish Labour Movement until earlier this year, told the Press Association: “I welcome the decision to suspend Ken Livingstone”. He denied the party faced a serious issue. Corbyn said: “There’s no crisis. We will not tolerate anti-Semitism in any form whatsoever in the party”. He was supporting Zionism.

“And we mustn’t use anti-Semitism to critique Israel”. That’s nonsense. You only have to visit Israel to hear criticism of Israel.

Scattergun accusations of anti-semitism have always been used by supporters of Israel to shut down criticism of that country’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land, rampant colonisation of conquered territory, ethnic cleansing of Arab areas and systematic racial discrimination against its Arab citizens. Her remarks were over the top but she’s not anti-Semitic.

The American left does have Jews that it can hold up as political shields for its anti-Semitism.

Among other things, the graphic suggests that “Israelis are most loved by Americans”, “America will no longer have to spend $3 billion tax payer money per year for Israel’s defense” and “Palestinians will get their land and life back”. A bitter critic of Israel, Corbyn himself has come under fire in the past for referring to Hamas and Hezbollah representatives as “friends”. The outcry was unstoppable, as Labour MPs queued up to demand that he had to go.

It said another lawmaker, John Mann, had been summoned over his behaviour after he was filmed shouting “You’ve lost it” at Livingstone and accusing him of being a “Nazi apologist” over the former mayor’s comments that Hitler had supported Zionism “before he went mad and ended up killing 6 million Jews”. “That’s a historical fact”. “You’re a disgusting Nazi apologist, Livingstone!”

He said Ms Shah’s Facebook posts were not “anti-Semitic” and he claimed there was a “well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticised Israeli policy as anti-Semitic”.

Bradford West MP Naz Shah told the House of Commons she “profoundly” regretted the posts made in 2014, before she became an MP.

The ex-London mayor will be investigated for “bringing the party into disrepute”.

The headline news from Scotland looks clear – the Scottish National Party will win the largest share of the vote in elections to the Scottish Parliament for the third time in succession and a second successive majority after 2011.