Livingstone: Labour antisemitism row based on lies and smears

Former London mayor Ken Livingstone has re-ignited Labour’s Jewhate row by dismissing the issue as “lies and smears” pushed by “ghastly old Blairites”.

He told a meeting of the pro-Corbyn Labour against the Witchhunt, that he had been victimised by “the elite”, who were trying to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister, according to the Mail on Sunday.

Livingstone said: “Jeremy Corbyn’s office did not want it to happen. It was about distracting… this is endemic if you have a genuine socialist leader who is going to transform things for ordinary people and make the bloody corporations pay their fair share of tax – they will do whatever is necessary to stop you.

“And that means lies and smears in most of the West. In other parts of the world it can mean assassination.

“I mean it was outrageous because it was still – and this was Jeremy’s big problem – a Labour machine controlled by all the ghastly old Blairites, convinced Jeremy was going to lead us to a wipe out, doing everything possible to get rid of him, and that’s what has fuelled all this stuff about anti-Semitism.”

He claimed that “the elite will do everything to stop Jeremy getting into Government, because they look at [Shadow Chancellor] John McDonnell and think that bugger’s going to stop all our tax dodging in the Cayman Islands.”