Chuka Umunna presses Livingstone over “embarrassing” Hitler comments

Ken Livingstone has said he regrets discussing Hitler in the run up to May’s local elections as Chuka Umunna attacked him for bringing “embarrassment” to Labour.

Livingstone said he would not have claimed Hitler supported the idea of a Jewish state in a hearing for the Home Affairs Select Committee yesterday, saying “If I could go back in time and avoid referring to Hitler and Zionism in Vanessa Feltz’s interview, I would.”

“I would go back and remove it because it allowed all the anti-Jeremy people in the Labour party to start whipping this up as an even bigger issue.

“I regret using it because it became this hysterical issue in the midst of our campaign to do well in the local elections and the next day virtually every front page was about me and anti-Semitism.”

Umunna, who sits on the committee, pressed the former London mayor saying he had many achievements in City Hall but had inadvertently become a “pin-up” for prejudice.

“By needlessly and repeatedly offending Jewish people in this way you’ve not only betrayed our Labour values but you betrayed your legacy as may” said Umunna, the former shadow Business Secretary.

“All you’re now be remembered for is for becoming a pin-up for the kind of prejudice that our party was built to fight against. That’s a huge shame and it’s a embarrassment.”

Livingstone was called in front of the committee after he said repeatedly Hitler supported Zionism in the 1930s. He also claimed accusations of anti-Semitism in Labour are a “well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticised Israeli policy as anti-Semitic”. His comments led to him being suspended from Labour for bringing the party into disrepute.