Ken Livingstone.
Ken Livingstone has been suspended from holding office in the Labour Party for one year after being found to have “brought the party into disrepute” over a series of incendiary comments relating to Adolf Hitler supporting Zionism.
However, the former London mayor will be re-instated as a member of the party, having initially been suspended pending a hearing. He will be free to vote in Labour elections and attend some party meetings.
Following an 11-month suspension, Labour’s disciplinary panel – the National Constitutional Committee – reached its decision to ban Mr Livingstone for an extra year from standing for election office within Labour and attending constituency party meetings. The ruling followed a three-day hearing into his remarks.
The party found that he had breached Labour’s rules, adding: “The NCC consequently determined that the sanction for the breach of Labour Party rules will be suspension from holding office and representation within the Labour Party for two years.
“Taking account of the period of administrative suspension already served the period of suspension will end on 27 April 2018.”
Mr Livingstone said after the hearing: “Today’s Labour Party panel extended my suspension for another year because of my political views, not because I have done anything to harm the Labour Party.
Mr Livingstone, a supporter and old friend of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has been a member of the party since 1969 but was previously exiled for four years after his decision to stand as an independent candidate for London mayor in 2000. He returned to the party four years later.
The former London Mayor caused further controversy on the first day of his disciplinary hearing after telling reporters that the Nazi’s infamous SS set up training camps so that German Jews “who were going there [Palestine] could be trained to cope with a very different sort of country”.