FORMER Labour Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has announced that he is to appeal against his two-year suspension from standing for office or representing the Labour Party at any level.
Livingstone was suspended under rule 2.1.8, which says that ‘no member of the party shall engage in conduct which in the opinion of the NEC is prejudicial, or in any act which in the opinion of the NEC is grossly detrimental to the party’.
The row first erupted last April when Livingstone came to the defence of Bradford West MP Naz Shah after she was accused of anti-Semitism for condemning Zionism in social media posts.
Livingstone said: ‘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.’
Livingstone has consistently defended his comments that Hitler ‘did a deal with the Zionists’, adding: ‘I am not damaging (to Labour). When I was suspended, I couldn’t walk down the street for hundreds of people stopping to say we know what you said is true.’ Livingstone said yesterday: ‘These people who want to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn keep driving this thing forward.’
The Labour Party National Executive Committee came under attack from the right wing for not expelling Livingstone and for its ruling, which will expire in April 2018 taking into account the suspension he has already served.
Deputy Leader Tom Watson described it as ‘incomprehensible’ that Livingstone hadn’t been expelled, accusing him of behaviour which ‘discredits the party I love’ and claiming the sentence ‘shames us all’.
Jeremy Newmark, chairman of the Jewish Labour Movement, called the suspension ‘quite insufficient’ and ‘a betrayal of the values of our party and what it stands for’. In fact Zionists did sign an agreement with the Nazis. Wikipedia states: ‘The Haavara Agreement (Hebrew translated: transfer agreement) was an agreement between Nazi Germany and Zionist German Jews signed on 25 August 1933.
‘The agreement was finalised after three months of talks by the Zionist Federation of Germany, the Anglo-Palestine Bank (under the directive of the Jewish Agency) and the economic authorities of Nazi Germany. It was a major factor in making possible the migration of approximately 60,000 German Jews to Palestine in 1933–1939. The agreement was designed to enable Jews fleeing antisemitic persecution under the new Nazi regime to transfer some portion of their assets to their refuge in British Mandatory Palestine. It provided some relief for Jews fleeing by allowing them to recover some of the possessions and assets they were forced to surrender before departing.
‘A portion of those possessions could be re-obtained by transferring them to Palestine as German export goods. The agreement was controversial at the time, and was criticised by many Jewish leaders both within the Zionist movement (such as the Revisionist Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky) and outside it.’
• CORBYN JOINS LIVINGSTONE WITCH-HUNT
‘LEFT’ Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn yesterday afternoon bowed to the wish of the ruling class and its propaganda machine and politically stabbed Ken Livingstone in the back. Corbyn said: ‘Ken Livingstone’s comments have been grossly insensitive, and he has caused deep offence and hurt to the Jewish community.
‘Labour’s independently elected National Constitutional Committee has found Ken guilty of bringing the party into disrepute and suspended him for two years. It is deeply disappointing that, despite his long record of standing up to racism, Ken has failed to acknowledge or apologise for the hurt he has caused.
‘Many people are understandably upset that he has continued to make offensive remarks which could open him to further disciplinary action. Since initiating the disciplinary process, I have not interfered with it and respect the independence of the party’s disciplinary bodies. But Ken’s subsequent comments and actions will now be considered by the National Executive Committee after representations from party members.’
The National Executive Committee is expected to expel Livingstone from the party. Livingstone’s former GLC comrade Labour’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell is yet to comment on Corbyn’s action. Earlier in the day, deputy leader Watson said ‘I find it incomprehensible that our elected lay members on the disciplinary panel found Ken Livingstone guilty of such serious charges, and then concluded that he can remain a member of the Labour Party.’
Watson has recently been central to the moves to replace Corbyn with a leading right winger. Now there will be no need for such action since Corbyn is doing the job for them.
