Hatton ends bid to rejoin Labour

‘Withdrawn his membership’

DEREK Hatton withdrew his application to re-join Labour last night after a storm over an allegedly anti-Semitic comment.

Last month the former Militant firebrand was controversially readmitted to the party – 34 years after being expelled.

Days later he was suspended again after it emerged he had tweeted that all Jews had a duty to speak out against ‘the ruthless murdering being carried out by Israel’.

Yesterday his case was discussed at a disciplinary hearing, at which Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson argued he should remain barred from the party.

Mr Hatton later confirmed he had withdrawn his application to re- join Labour. A party spokesman said: ‘Derek Hatton has withdrawn his membership application and is therefore not a member of the Labour Party.’

It emerged earlier this month that Mr Hatton, 71, had been let back in the party after its general secretary discussed the case with Jeremy Corbyn.

Jennie Formby overruled a senior party official who urged her to block the former Militant leader’s bid to re-join the party.

The row over Mr Hatton’s readmission came as he 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 his comment ‘seemed to imply that every Jew, wherever they live in the world, is responsible for the actions of the Israeli government’.

Mr Hatton, the former deputy leader of Liverpool City Council, had also questioned whether Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis existed and backed Ken Livingstone after his suspension.

He attacked Jewish MPs such as Dame Margaret Hodge, saying her criticisms of the leader were ‘nothing to do with antiSemitism but all to do with trying to remove Corbyn’.

He also supported former London mayor Mr Livingstone when he claimed Hitler was a Zionist, tweeting: ‘Where is the lie in what he said?’