‘Sickened’ Labour front bencher piles pressure on Livingstone to go

PRESSURE TO expel Ken Livingstone from the Labour Party continued to grow as a shadow cabinet member said she was “sickened” by his failure to recognise the trauma he has caused to the Jewish community.

Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner said she was “shocked” at the leniency of the suspension handed to the former London mayor by a disciplinary panel which found he had brought the party into disrepute with controversial remarks linking Adolf Hitler and Zionism.

Ms Rayner said: “The Jewish community are really upset, and quite rightly so.

“We all know the history behind what happened with the Holocaust, and I’ve been to Auschwitz a couple of times, and, quite frankly, it sickens me that the upset and the trauma that has been caused, that’s been felt by the Jewish community, hasn’t been recognised, actually, by Ken Livingstone and his remarks. “It’s not an academic issue. “I want to see the sanction to be zero tolerance, and if that means that he is excluded form the party then that should be it. There shouldn’t be any excuse for it in our Labour Party.”

Ms Rayner is among more than 100 Labour MPs who have signed an open letter stating that the suspension imposed on Mr Livingstone was a “betrayal” of Labour values.

A defiant Mr Livingstone insisted he had simply been telling the truth and warned he would take legal action against the party if it tried to exclude him.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said there is no place for Mr Livingstone in Labour because some of his views were “anti-Semitic”.

He said: “I think some of his views were anti-Semitic. Whether he is or not is a different issue.”

Mr Corbyn, on a visit to Lancashire to launch Labour’s new free school meals policy, suggested the issue was a distraction from upcoming local elections but would not say whether he thought London’s former mayor should be expelled.

He said: “Ken Livingstone’s case was referred to the national constitutional committee, they are not controlled by me.”