It has emerged that a Labour MP, Rupa Huq, made comments last year at a meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign suggesting that a Labour Government could make an apology for Israel’s creation in 1948.
In response to a question about whether such an apology should be made, the MP for Ealing said: “1948, that happened under a British government. To my mind, an apology – yes. You could do one. A Labour Government could probably get that through”.
She continued: “But it sounds a bit Tony Blair to me though, and we all know what happened to him”.
Ms Huq told the Mail on Sunday that “those aren’t [her] views”. She added: “I was answering a question. I went on later to say that there shouldn’t be an apology. I have supported Labour Friends of Israel events and am a signatory to the We Believe In Israel charter”.
Ms Huq recently defended Labour MP Naz Shah after it came to light that Ms Shah had called for the State of Israel to be removed from the Middle East and “relocated” to the United States in the most high-profile incident yet of anti-Semitism.
Ms Shah resigned her post as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell in April and was later suspended from the Labour Party. Last week, the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee confirmed that Shah had resigned from the Committee prior to its inquiry into anti-Semitism.
On Friday, former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone repeated his assertion that “Hitler was supporting Zionism”, despite being suspended for bringing the Labour Party into disrepute the previous week.
