Kick Ken out, says Baroness Royall

Baroness Royall has said she “nearly blew a gasket” when Ken Livingstone repeated his claims about Hitler and Zionism this week.

The Labour peer told an audience on Wednesday evening that she wanted the former Mayor of London to be expelled from the party.

“He should have been booted out a long time ago as far as I’m concerned,” Baroness Royall said.

Mr Livingstone appeared on a series of television and radio programmes earlier this week. He said Hitler had collaborated with Zionists and Adolf Eichmann had armed Jewish fighters in Palestine.

Baroness Royall’s comments came at the launch of a book on antisemitism on the left, written by Dave Rich, the Community Security Trust’s deputy communications director.

The peer said: “I nearly blew a gasket when I heard reports of what Ken Livingstone had been saying again. Why do they keep putting Ken Livingstone, a serial offender, on our screens? I for one firmly hope that in the next couple of weeks he will be booted out of the party.”

Mr Livingstone was suspended by Labour after making similar claims in April, and awaits a full disciplinary hearing.

Also attending the event was Jewish Labour MP Ruth Smeeth, who is under police protection after being the target of antisemitic abuse, including a death threat.

Baroness Royall said: I'm especially pleased to share a platform with Ruth, who has been extraordinarily brave and has been subjected to the most outrageous antisemitism."

The peer urged Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to "make absolutely clear that these people aren't his people.

"He has not.

"As a member of the Labour Party, I am deeply ashamed of all the antisemitic incidents."

She added: "People who were on the fringe of the Labour Party in the '60s, '70s, '80s, like Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn, they are now an integral part of the Labour Party.

"Many of these people are in their own terms anti racist, but they are blind to what antisemitism is. They've got such a narrow understanding of antisemitism - they believe the left oppose fascism and racism and therefore they cannot do antisemitic things. Of course, we know they can.

"George Galloway, another person I loathe and despise, has argued that leftists cannot be antisemitic because antisemitism is a right-wing condition.

"So does the Labour Party have a problem with antisemitism? I would say yes, it does.

"So many Jewish people are walking away from the Labour Party. I've got friends who say 'I'm sorry, I just can't take it anymore'.

Baroness Royall, who was appointed by Labour to investigate claims of antisemitism at Oxford University Labour Club earlier this year, called on Mr Corbyn to leave no doubt that Jew-hatred in the party was unacceptable.

She said: "It's the leader of the party who has to speak out loud and clear against antisemitism and he has to say categorically that if somebody in the party is antisemitic that cannot be tolerated.

"My party is a tolerant party, welcoming to Jews, who naturally feel a personal, emotional and spiritual connection to Israel. A place of robust debate but a place where we can disagree agreeably. That's my party, that's Ruth's party and that's the party we want to cling on to."

Ms Smeeth revealed that she had faced opposition within the party because of her Jewish background from the beginning of her political career.

She said: “The first time I went for selection [as an MP] I was described – people shouldn’t vote for me because I was an extreme Zionist. Like it was a sport.”

“And that was a bizarre comment and it really upset me because I’d never heard that before, I’d never been targeted. It was all about the fact I was Jewish. Zionism even then was a code – and that was in 2007, in a Labour Party that had just replaced Tony Blair with Gordon Brown.

“But follow on a few years and I was going for selection and the first death threats arrived on the eve of my hustings.

“And they came from the far-left, they were orchestrated to unsettle me because they arrived at two o’clock in the morning before I began to do my hustings, the final debate.

“They were very graphic about how they wanted to kill me and why. It was all pro-Palestinian. It was all about Israel.

“Now, I’ve never made a public comment about Israel. I don’t do Israel. I do anti-racism. I do protecting British Jews as a political advocate. I do defence policy, I don’t do foreign policy.

“My additional security began from the day I was elected. That was so little compared to what I have now.”

But she urged Jewish Labour members not to leave the party.

“I beg all of you that are Labour Party members – regardless of who wins, Owen [Smith] or Jeremy, you can’t leave. You cannot leave the Labour Party, because that means they’ve won.

“And we need you to stay because I am going nowhere. But if I am one voice alone, I am screwed.”

Baroness Royall interjected at this point to say “two of us.”

Ms Smeeth continued her plea, saying: “Please stay. I need you to keep supporting us, that’s what I’m saying. I am begging you not to leave us to fight this fight alone.”