UK Labour Party suspends Ken Livingstone
MPs, chief rabbi outraged over failure to expel former London mayor over Hitler remarks
LONDON – To the shock of many in and outside the British Jewish community, as well as MPs within the Labour Party itself, two-term mayor of London Ken Livingstone was suspended as opposed to expelled from his party for a year on Tuesday evening, under the charge of having brought it into a state of disrepute.
Under the terms of his suspension, Livingstone will not be able to hold office or represent the party at any level, but will be able to attend branch meetings and participate in party ballots.
However, in a statement released on Wednesday afternoon, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn announced that Livingstone’s case would now be considered by the party’s National Executive Committee, “after representations from party members” with regards to the former mayor’s failure to apologize for his previous comments in the aftermath of Tuesday night’s decision.
Earlier in the day, Corbyn’s deputy Tom Watson said: “I find it incomprehensible that our elected lay members on the disciplinary panel found Ken Livingstone guilty of such charges and then concluded that he can remain a member of the party.”
The decision has also been condemned by 100 Labour MPs and nearly 50 lords in a statement stating, “We stand with the Jewish community against this insidious racism. This was not done in our name, and we will not allow it to go unchecked.”
Tuesday night’s decision marked another chapter in what appears to be a never-ending saga that began on April 28, 2016, in which while defending Naz Shah, an MP who had been suspended from the party over accusations of antisemitism on social media, Livingstone stated among other things: “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.”
Livingstone’s comments, made in reference largely to the Haavara Agreement of 1933 between the Nazi regime and several Zionist organizations, have been disputed by historians across the board.
Livingstone’s hearing, held behind closed doors before the Labour Party’s National Constitutional Committee, began last Thursday, and continued this week as no decision could be reached last Friday.
In a statement, the party announced that “the NCC… determined that the sanction for the breach of Labour Party rules will be suspension from holding office and representation within the Labour Party for two years.” As Livingstone has already been in “administrative suspension” for the past year, this means that he will be eligible to return as a member at the end of April 2018, pending a review into whether he is fit to return.
Outside the hearing, Livingstone said, “I do think it’s important that the Labour Party should not expel or suspend people for telling the truth,” and that the NCC had made its decision to suspend as opposed to expel him due to his “long contribution to the party.” In a statement published online later that evening, he said that he “will be launching a campaign to overturn my suspension of party membership.”
Since last April, Livingstone has repeatedly stood by his statements, as recently as Tuesday morning on BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today program saying, “What caused offence for those people [was when they] opened the page[s] of the Jewish Chronicle and saw the claim that I’d said Hitler was a Zionist.”
In response, Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard wrote in a post published on the newspaper’s website on Tuesday morning that “Mr. Livingstone’s version of this very recent history appears to be as accurate as his version of 1930s and ’40s history,” noting that “it was not until a week after Mr. Livingstone had first started speaking about Hitler that the JC was first able to cover it in print.”
On Wednesday afternoon across a series of interviews, Livingstone remained unrepentant, referencing Hitler a total of 12 times during an appearance on radio station LBC and responding “not at all” when asked if he felt he had brought shame upon the Labour Party.
Across the British Jewish community, near all damned the decision. Chief Rabbi of Britain Ephraim Mirvis said that “the Labour Party has failed the Jewish community, it has failed its members and it has failed all those who believe in zero tolerance of antisemitism.”
Jonathan Arkush, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said, “Relations between the Labour Party and the Jewish community have reached a new all-time low… All we can conclude from this hopelessly wrong decision is that the [Labour] [P] arty has an enduring problem with antisemitism to which is it is unwilling to face up.”
The Jewish Leadership Council put out a statement saying, “The deeply shocking decision by the Labour Party not to expel Ken Livingstone highlights Labour’s disregard for repairing the historic but broken relationship with the Jewish community,” concluding, “This whole incident makes us question the desire of the Labour Party to repair their relationship with the Jewish community.”
Across social media, Labour MPs expressed shock at the verdict, with Luciana Berger stating, “A new low for my party this evening… Why is antisemitism being treated differently from any other form of racism?”
John Mann, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism (who lambasted Livingstone to his face in the aftermath of his comments in April 2016), said, “Livingstone will not be allowed to go unchallenged with his fake history.”
Tamara Zieve contributed to this report.