Farcical! Derek Hatton is suspended again
DEREK Hatton was last night suspended by Labour just two days after it was revealed he had rejoined the party.
In an astonishing U-turn, Labour said it acted after it emerged Mr Hatton, 71, wrote a tweet suggesting all Jews had a duty to speak out about Israel’s crimes.
Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson and shadow minister Barry Gardiner had written to the party’s general secretary to protest against the readmission of the former Militant Tendency firebrand.
News that he had rejoined Labour emerged on Monday – the day seven MPs quit the party over Jeremy Corbyn’s attitude to antiSemitism and Brexit. On Tuesday it emerged that in 2012 Mr Hatton tweeted: ‘Jewish people with any sense of humanity need to start speaking out publicly against the ruthless murdering being carried out by Israel!’ Labour MP Neil Coyle said Mr Hatton’s comment ‘seemed to imply that every Jew, wherever they live in the world, is responsible for the actions of the Israeli government’.
Earlier yesterday, a Labour source said party chiefs were not aware of the tweet when Mr Hatton applied to rejoin. The insider added: ‘The party is looking into this as a matter of urgency.’ It later emerged he had been suspended. The Mail revealed yesterday that Mr Hatton had questioned the existence of Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis and attacked Jewish MPs such as Dame Margaret Hodge.
He claimed her criticisms were ‘nothing to do with anti-Semitism but all to do with trying to remove Corbyn’. Mr Hatton also supported former London mayor ken Livingstone after he claimed Hitler was a Zionist, tweeting: ‘Where is the lie in what he said?’
And he called for a sporting boycott on Israel. Shadow international trade secretary Mr Gardiner issued an apology to Jews on behalf of Labour and suggested Jewish MP Luciana Berger and others who quit this week had been ‘forced out’.
In a debate on anti-Semitism in the Commons, he said: ‘This morning I saw the reports about not just the readmission of Derek Hatton but the tweets he has mentioned.
‘I wrote to the general secretary of our party, I lodged a formal complaint. I understand that action has since been taken in respect of the complaint. I think it was a travesty... I think many of us knew for some while that he had
applied to rejoin the party, but for the news of his readmission to come to public attention on the very day when some members of our party were forced out – I think it was appalling.’ He added: ‘I want on behalf of my party to publicly apologise to the Jewish community. We have let you down.
‘We know it. We are trying to do better. We are trying to become the party we have always aspired to be. We will not stop working until we once again become a safe and welcome home for people from the Jewish community, as from every other.’
Mr Hatton was expelled by Labour 34 years ago for membership of the Trotskyite Militant Tendency. He was deputy leader of Liverpool Council when an illegal budget was set and redundancy notices were sent by taxi to thousands of workers.