Amid the suspension of Ken Livingstone from the Labour Party and the anti-Semitism scandal the party is embroiled in, Prime Minister David Cameron asserted: “It is quite clear that Labour has a problem with anti-Semitism… it’s now totally apparent”.
The Prime Minister condemned the Labour Party for its lack of decisive action and stated that anti-Semitism is “unacceptable in a modern political party”.
He underlined: “Now the Labour party needs to deal with anti-Semitism”.
In the latest anti-Semitism controversy engulfing the Labour Party, the former Labour Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, was suspended from the party after stating in a BBC radio interview this morning that “Hitler was supporting Zionism”.
Speaking in defence of Naz Shah MP, who was suspended from the Labour Party yesterday after it emerged she had made a series of anti-Semitic social media posts, including one which called on Israelis to be “relocated” to the United States, Mr Livingstone said: “Hitler was supporting Zionism… Let’s remember when Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews”.
He added that Naz Shah was the victim of a “well-orchestrated campaign by Israel lobby”. In the same interview, he said it was “over the top…to think of anti-Semitism and racism as exactly the same thing”.
In the most high-profile incident yet of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, it emerged that Bradford West MP Naz Shah called for the State of Israel to be removed from the Middle East and “relocated” to the United States. In a u-turn, the Labour Party announced that Ms Shah was to be suspended from the party by the General Secretary: “Pending investigation, she is unable to take part in any party activity and the whip is removed”.
