Exclusive: Racists in Labour don't represent my party - Johnson

After days of questioning on the scale of anti-Semitic views running through the party, Labour released the figure amid claims Mr Corbyn has done more than any other political leader to clamp down on the issue.

Six of those suspended members were then expelled, and the suspensions include Bradford West MP Naz Shah and former mayor of London Ken Livingstone. Two councillors were also suspended on Wednesday lunchtime in south Wales and Renfrewshire.

After a brutal onslaught of critism from Prime Minister David Cameron during Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Corbyn was forced to confront past comments he had made in which he referred to anti-Semitic extremist organisations Hamas and Hezbollah as friends.

London’s mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan sharing a stage with extremist speakers was also repeatedly raised by the Prime Minister.

A spokesperson for Labour said Jeremy Corbyn does not approve of Hamas and Hezbollah and anyone displaying anti-Semitic sentiment is not a friend of his.

He said the word “friend” was used in the context of a meeting about the diplomatic process into peace and reconciliation in the war-torn region.

He said Mr Corbyn supports a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine and has also agreed to meet with the Israeli ambassador following his invitation.

“Jeremy has said repeatedly that anti-Semitism in any form in society and in the Labour Party is completely unacceptable and repugnant and will be acted on. In the time he has been leader 18 people have been suspended in relation to anti-Semitic allegations or incidents. Every single one of those has taken place within 48 hours. Getting on for half of those relate to incidents or online posts before Jeremy Corbyn was leader.

“He has taken more action, more quickly than any other Labour leader or any leader of any other party,” the spokesperson said.

He added the response of other political parties to allegations of anti-Semitism and racism pales in comparison to the efforts of the Labour Party to act swiftly.

“Nothing remotely compares with the speed of action,” he added, and referenced the freshly launched investigation within the Labour led by former Liberty chief Shami Chakrabarti.

Reflecting on the recent suspensions of party members, Labour veteran and former Home Secretary Alan Johnson said he does not recognise Labour as a party that has among its ranks members that are anti-Jewish.

He said: “I am worried about it. It’s not my party, it’s not the party I joined.”

Citing a long history of Labour Party action against racism and the rise of fascism, including the battle of Cable Street in 1936, he said the recent events have been “offensive” to card carrying members.

“But these accusations need to be looked at and the people involved need to be rooted out and to make sure that we are anti-racist in everything we do and that we get rid of any racists that we might have that infiltrate our ranks,” he said.

“I don’t think it has an impact [on the local elections]. It might have an impact on Mayoral Elections, I hope not.”

On Naz Shah, the Bradford West MP who was suspended last Thursday after endorsing a social media message that suggested Israel should be relocated to the USA, he said her apology before the House of Commons last week had been genuine and she may weather the storm.

He said: “Her apology was so fulsome, so obviously genuine. You can’t want to pillory them, you want to reform them. You want to convert them and I think it was quite moving the way Naz apologised.

“It was unequivocal. So I think if we had just stayed at that the issue would have been over - it was Ken coming blundering in.”

He said the intervention of Ken Livingstone, who whilst defending Ms Shah in a live radio interview said Hitler had been a Zionist, was “crazy”.

“There is no situation so bad for Labour that the arrival of Ken Livingstone can’t make it worse. Ken should learn to keep his trap shut,” he said.

“You are there to defend the party against accusations of anti-Semitism and you bring in as a witness for the defence panel, Hitler. It’s a crazy thing to do, just bad judgement and maladroit beyond belief.”

He said he hoped the rising number of suspensions does not play out at the ballot box as “no-one could doubt Jeremy Corbyn’s credentials for being anti-racist.”

He said: “I think he has been forthcoming. The criticism is that he didn’t act quickly enough with Naz Shah, but he acted very quickly with Ken Livingstone so perhaps he had learnt.”

David Cameron’s savaging of the opposition involved asking Mr Corbyn five times to retract his one-time reference to Hamas and Hezbollah as friends at an event in Parliament.

He said: “[Hamas] are a terrorist group who believe in killing Jews, and that’s why whatever the Right Honourable Gentleman says about combatting anti-Semitism in the Labour Party will mean nothing until he withdraws the remark that they were his friends.”

Mr Corbyn said: “[It was] a discussion I was having in order to try and promote a peace process and I absolutely do not approve of those organisations.”

With the polls open on Thursday morning for the London mayoral election, Mr Cameron used his last opportunity to publicly criticise Labour candidate Sadiq Khan for sharing a stage with extremists including the fanatic who trained the London 7/7 bombers, Sajil Shahi, and another extremist who said Jewish people should be “drowned in the ocean” and people who support Islamic State.

In a bitter repost, Mr Corbyn said Mr Khan had been subject to a “smear” by the Prime Minister.

He said one radical, Suleman Gani, who Mr Khan shared a platform with and who has regularly been cited by the Tories as an example of an extremist association has also shared a stage with Conservative mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith.