Labour vows to root out ‘racism,’ after Livingstone's suspension

Britain’s Labour Party has vowed to root out “racism” after suspending Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, over bringing up the issue of Israeli war crimes and implying that Adolf Hitler was a Zionist.

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party and leader of the opposition, said on Thursday there were "grave concerns" about the language used in an interview by Livingstone.

"It's not a crisis. There's no crisis. Where there is any racism in the party it will be dealt with, it will be rooted out,” he said.

Speaking on BBC Radio London earlier in the day, Livingstone defended Naz Shah, a member of the British Parliament who recently resigned after being forced to apologize for backing calls for Israel to “relocate” to the United States.

He said he had never heard anyone in the Labour Party say anything anti-Semitic.

"When Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews,” Livingstone added.

MP John Mann called Livingstone a "Nazi apologist." Mann, however, was reprimanded by the Labour Party for his remarks.

A Labour spokesman said Mann was told it was "completely inappropriate for Labour Members of Parliament to be involved in very public rows on the television.”

In an interview with BBC later on Thursday, Livingstone slammed Mann, saying he "went completely over the top.”

He also denied calling Hitler a Zionist, but defended his statement, saying that he had quoted historical "facts".

Corbyn said Livingstone had been suspended amid "very grave concerns about the language he used in the interview this morning" and the Labour would investigate the issue.

"Anybody that thinks this party is not cracking down on anti-Semitism is simply wrong. We have suspended where appropriate, we have investigated all cases. We will not tolerate anti-Semitism in any form whatsoever in the party,” he said.

Earlier this week, Naz Shah resigned as an aide to the party’s shadow chancellor after being forced to apologize for backing calls for Israel to “relocate” to the United States.

The Bradford MP, who made the comments in a 2014 Facebook post, stepped down as the parliamentary private aide to the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, British media reported Tuesday.

Before becoming an MP in May 2015, Shah shared a graphic showing the outline of the occupied territories superimposed onto a US map with the comment “problem solved.”

The graphic said the relocation would be a “solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict,” and that it would allow the Palestinian people to “get their life and their land back.”

Shah added a note saying the “transportation cost” would be less than three years worth of the US military assistance to Israel. “America will no longer have to spend $3 billion tax payer money per year for Israel’s defense,” she added at the time.

The MP has also posted an article on social media which linked Zionism with al-Qaeda.

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