The president of the Board of Deputies has accused Jeremy Corbyn of “leading the Labour Party into a dark place of ugly conspiracy theories”, after 2012 footage resurfaced of him blaming terrorist attacks in Egypt on “the hand of Israel”.

Footage revealed by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) showed Mr Corbyn appearing on Press TV, the Iranian state-controlled television channel, in 2012.

Then a backbench MP, Mr Corbyn was being interviewed by anti-Israel activist Lauren Booth regarding the murder of 16 Egyptian policemen by gunmen dressed as Bedouin nomads. 

“In whose interest is it to kill Egyptians, other than Israel, concerned at the growing closeness of relationship between Palestine and the new Egyptian government,” Mr Corbyn asked.

“I suspect the hand of Israel in this whole process.”

Reacting to the clip this weekend, Board president Marie van der Zyl said: “Even by Labour’s low standards, the last few days since the unprecedented joint banner headline by our community’s leading newspapers have been utterly shameful.

 “Shadow Cabinet members are lining up to oppose the leadership’s position on the IHRA antisemitism definition; one Labour councillor has been suspended for saying that Jews drink blood; another has blamed Mossad for Jeremy Corbyn’s self-inflicted poll woes; and a video has emerged of Jeremy Corbyn himself indulging in conspiracy theories about Israel being behind terrorism in Egypt on the Iranian regime’s propaganda station Press TV.”

The CAA said it planned to make a disciplinary complaint to Labour about Mr Corbyn, but saidthat “in the past, the Party has failed to take action over our complaints, in stark contrast to its fierce investigation of its own MPs, Ian Austin and Dame Margaret Hodge, who face disciplinary proceedings over their angry criticism of the party for refusing to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism.”

Mrs van der Zyl also criticised how the party was potentially about to discipline two MPs of the "while the party machine cannot seem to stir itself to take any action on egregious longstanding complaints of racism".

She added: “Jeremy Corbyn is leading the Labour Party into a dark place of ugly conspiracy theories and it has become a home for overt antisemites and antisemitism.

"In 2018, Labour is not only a party with extravagant levels of tolerance for antisemitism but one which deliberately obstructs measures to counter hatred and punishes those who speak out against it.

"Jeremy Corbyn needs to lead Labour out of this deep abyss and urgently demonstrate to the world Labour can return to being an anti-racist Party.”