LONDON—The former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, accused of anti-Semitism, has resigned from the Labour Party.
But while resigning he didn’t accept he was guilty of antisemitism over his repeated remarks that ‘’Adolf Hitler was a supporter of Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.”
Livingstone has been suspended from the Labour Party since 2016 over his remarks.
“I am loyal to the Labour Party and to Jeremy Corbyn (the party leader),” he said in a statement to the BBC.
“However, any further disciplinary action against me may drag on for months or even years, distracting attention from Jeremy’s policies. I am therefore, with great sadness, leaving the Labour Party.”
Corbyn, who leads Labour since 2015, has been accused by the Jewish community haof anti-Semitism of whitewashing, encouraging or ignoring the party’s anti-Semitism problem. He himself has called Hamas and Hezbollah representatives his “friends” whom he was “honored” to host at the British parliament.
Corbyn has vowed to kick out of the party anyone caught engaging in hate speech, including about Jews. But the Board of Deputies of British Jews have cited the failure to expel members like Livingstone, among other issues, as proof that Corbyn was failing to do so.
