Ken Livingstone defiant as Labour weighs up expulsion over Hitler comments
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Version 0 of 1. Ken Livingstone has said he is hopeful of avoiding expulsion from the Labour party, on the final day of his disciplinary hearing that heard the former London mayor brought the party into disrepute by his persistent claims that Adolf Hitler supported Zionism. Livingstone, who called several anti-Zionist Jewish Labour members in his defence on Thursday, said he had the support of many in the party. “I’m always hopeful. It’s pretty fair. The injustice was actually suspending me for something I hadn’t said,” he said outside the national constitutional committee (NCC) hearing, Labour’s highest disciplinary body. “Have I said anything that wasn’t true? All the Jewish activists who spoke on my behalf yesterday, all actually confirmed what I said was true. “The big difference is that, though I said that Hitler supported Zionism, MPs like John Mann were immediately claiming that I said Hitler was a Zionist. That was repeated on the Jewish Chronicle website with appalling other stories saying that I said Jews were like Nazis. None of this is true. So, as long as the truth prevails, we will be OK.” Labour’s NCC, the only body with the power to expel members, is expected to make its decision at the conclusion of the hearing on Friday. Livingstone also repeated his vow to bring the party to court for a judicial review of the decision if the NCC decided to expel him. “The obvious thing would be a judicial review because that would be heard in public and that would be the best way of clearing the air of these lies and smears. This isn’t North Korea, we are supposed to be an open democracy,” he told the Evening Standard. The panel of three who will rule on Livingstone’s fate later on Friday is permitted to give a majority verdict under Labour party rules, but party figures believe that if the decision is made to expel the former mayor then a unanimous decision would be highly preferable in order to offer better legal protection to the party. On Thursday, the panel heard that the former Labour mayor of London brought the party into disrepute by suggesting Hitler had supported Zionism, assertions Livingstone repeated at length to reporters outside the meeting on Thursday morning. He is also believed to have told the panel that the case against him was motivated by a plot to undermine the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and his supporters in the party. Livingstone, who has been suspended from the party for 11 months, told reporters on Thursday that the Nazis sold weapons to Zionist fighters and set up training camps to help Jews adapt to life in a different country. “So you had, right up until the start of the second world war, real collaboration,” he said. Livingstone’s comments refer to the Haavara agreement signed by the Nazi government that facilitated the relocation of some Jews to Palestine in 1933, before the Third Reich began its campaign of mass extermination. However, Livingstone’s claim that the agreement had meant Hitler was supportive of a Jewish homeland has been widely disputed by historians. Labour’s national executive committee, which referred Livingstone’s case to the NCC, has compiled evidence including a lengthy dossier from the Jewish Labour Movement, which contains criticism of Livingstone by senior rabbis, as well as polling and campaign experts about the detrimental effect of Livingstone’s comments on the party’s electoral chances. |