And yesterday also saw Jeremy Corbyn announce the launch of an inquiry into anti-Semitism within the Labour Party.
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Among the most recent suspensions on Monday, Nottingham City Councilor Ilyas Aziz was found to have promoted the antisemitic blood libel by posting that Jews should “stop drinking Gaza blood”, while Blackburn with Darwen City Councilor Salim Mulla re-posted a message by previously suspended Labour lawmaker MP Naz Shah about the “relocation” of Israel to the U.S.
Their suspension follows that of the Bradford West MP and former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who made the claim that Hitler supported Zionism before “he went a mad”.
Jeremy Corbyn will on Tuesday seek to seize back the initiative in Labour’s battle to hold on to key council seats at Thursday’s local elections, after the party was forced to suspend three councillors as the row about antisemitism continued.
She said she would be “dismayed if some people were hurling around accusations of anti-Semitism as part of some intra-Labour Party dispute” and issued a warning to plotters.
Mr Hussain was accused of being behind a 2014 tweet to Israeli footballer Yossi Benayoun which said: “You are an complete and utter plonker, you and your country doing the same thing that hitler did to ur race in ww2”.
Mr Corbyn said: “I don’t know who these Labour MPs are but I would advise every member of the party, including our MPs, to get out there on the doorstep and campaign”.
But he faced calls from Israeli politicians and diplomats to give a more “unequivocal” condemnation.
They said: ‘People who are doing frontbench jobs, who are on the soft left, are quite embarrassed now about the fact they are linked to this team.
Shadow worldwide development secretary Diane Abbott also blasted suggestions that the party was beset by anti-semitism as a “smear” against members who have spent a lifetime fighting racism.
She told Channel 4 News: “There clearly is an issue with anti-Semitism in the Labour Party otherwise we wouldn’t have spent the best part of the last six or seven days talking about it”.
Twenty out of the fifty were suspended only in the last two weeks.
Sadiq Khan indicated that his prospects of being elected London mayor on Thursday had been damaged by ex-City Hall chief Ken Livingstone’s highly-controversial comments linking Hitler and Zionism.
Ms Abbott, a long time ally of Mr Livingstone, said his remarks had been “extremely offensive”, but defended the party’s handling of the row.
The upper echelons of the party needed training “as clearly they don’t understand what racism is, and there is no hierarchy when it comes to racism”, he told the Observer.
You’ve had too many people on the progressive side of politics who have embraced Hamas and Hezbollah.
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Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn waits to address the crowd in Clerkenwell Green, central London, to celebrate workers’ achievements at a May Day rally where Jeremy Corbyn condemned anti-Semitism.
