The vicar who stood down as a Labour candidate over allegations of antisemitism sparked chaos at a meeting of Liverpool's Momentum group on Tuesday, after he arrived clutching stones and invited attendees to throw them at him.
In bizarre scenes, Liam Moore arrived unexpectedly for the Liverpool Momentum committee meeting and stood in front of audience to attack what he said was a “serious smear campaign against me because I democratically won an election at a selection meeting" to be a council candidate.
But Mr Moore – who had previously accused pro-Israel MPs of “infiltrating” Labour and “selling out for 30 piece of silver” in reference to Judas – was greeted with loud shouts of disapproval as he kept trying to argue his case.
At one stage he walked towards a Momentum member to display a collection of stones he was clutching – and suggested they should be thrown at him in an apparent reference to the biblical stoning of Jesus.
One Liverpool Momentum member at the meeting told the JC: ”No one could quite believe it when Liam Moore showed the stones in he was clutching.
“He went over aggressively to one member in particular and banging them down in front of him and then suggested he might want to throw them at him.
“Locally a lot of people have started to compare it to the stoning scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian.”
Mr Moore had turned up at the meeting in the company of Barry Kushner, a fellow Norris Green Labour member and Council cabinet member, and his partner Joanne.
He stood down as a candidate for Liverpool City Council for the Norris Green ward earlier this month after his past statements were exposed.
In August, he tweeted: “We are seeing a very English right wing Zionist coup mate and sadly the Labour party is infiltrated by sell-outs who would sacrifice a Labour government for their 30 pieces of silver.”
In April, he wrote on Facebook: “When you see right wing politicians or commentaries, protesting, condemning people standing against Israel’s treatment of Palestine, you know that it’s the Zionism machine in full flow, it’s not antisemitic, it’s humanity in solidarity crying out saying ‘Stop No More!”
The post included a picture with the caption “Zionism is not healthy for children and other living things.”
In 2014, he tweeted that “people understand Rothschilds Zionists run Israel and world governments, don’t give a toss about ordinary Jew, Jesus is coming back his [sic] people”.
Labour MPs Ian Austin and Wes Streeting were among those to question how he ever came to be selected a Labour council candidate.
Despite his support for Mr Moore, Mr Kushner was picked to discuss antisemitism at a meeting of the neighbouring Wavertree Constituency Labour Party, whose MP is Luciana Berger.
Stephen Twigg, the MP for Mr Moore's constituency, has refused to comment on his antisemitic remarks.
