Jeremy Corbyn ducked an invitation to express personal remorse over Labour’s antisemitism crisis in a TV appearance on the eve of the party’s conference.

Interviewed on BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday morning, he was asked by the presenter if he would look into the camera and apologise to Jewish viewers.

But Mr Corbyn responded that he would “simply say this. I am an anti-racist and will die an anti-racist. Antisemitism is a scourge in any society and… I will continue to oppose it all my life.”

He went on: “Under my leadership of this party, we have been more specific about the definition, we have set up much better processes for dealing with incidents within the party and we’re improving them even further to make sure any complaints are dealt with quickly. The party must be, and is, a safe and welcoming place for all communities.”

Grilled for more than 10 minutes over a number of incidents that have been the subject of intense scrutiny in recent months, he insisted he was “absolutely not” an antisemite.

When pressed why in 2012 he had opposed a mural in the East End containing antisemitic caricatures, he said he had at the time been concerned about the idea of taking down public murals but acknowledged he had “perhaps been too hasty in my judgment”.

He said he was pleased the mural had been removed and it “should never have been put up.”

He was also asked to explain his widely condemned comments five years ago that “Zionists” do not understand English irony.

He said they had been directed at two people who had upset the Palestinian Authority representative in Britain Manuel Hassassian at a meeting.

“Manuel had come recently to this country and fully understands English humour and irony and the use of language,” the Labour leader said. “They were British-born people who clearly, obviously had been here all their lives”.

Mr Corbyn said his remarks were “not intended to be antisemitic in any way”, adding he was opposed to antisemitism in every way because “I can see where it leads to now in Poland, Hungary, in central Europe, I can see where it led to in the past.”

When quizzed whether he would have gone to lay a wreath at a memorial service in a Tunis cemetery in 2014 had he known members of the Black September held responsible for the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre were buried there, he evaded the question.

He said at the time he “didn’t know they were there”, explaining he had gone to commemorate those killed in the Israeli bombing of the PLO headquarters in Tunis in 1985.

“I am not a supporter of Black September and I do think we should always commemorate those that have been killed by bombing raids and that was what I was doing,” he said.

But when asked whether he thought the state of Israel was a “racist endeavour,” he replied, “No… the establishment of the state of Israel was in agreement with the United Nations and its borders were defined.”

Mr Marr challenged him over why when Labour’s national executive committees had finally agreed to accept the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism earlier this month, he had tried to add a rider that it would not be antisemitic to describe the circumstances around Israel’s foundation as racist because of the impact on Palestinians.

Mr Corbyn responded: “I think it is right that people should be able to discuss the establishment of the state of Israel but recognise the existence of the state of Israel and not prevent that kind of debate.”

Labour’s executive had made it clear, he explained, there “can and should always be a debate. Because the only way we are going to bring peace in the Middle East is when people talk to each other, and when there is an end to the settlement policy and a withdrawal of the Occupation.”