A former Labour MP has been suspended from the party after saying he no longer had “respect and empathy for the Jewish community and their historic suffering… due to what they and their Blairite plotters are doing to my party.”

Jim Sheridan, who represented Paisley and Renfrewshire North until losing his seat in 2015, is now a Labour councillor. 

In a Facebook post on Friday, Mr Sheridan wrote: “For almost all my adult life I have had the utmost respect and empathy for the Jewish community and their historic suffering. No longer due to what they and their Blairite plotters are doing to my party and the long suffering people of Britain who need a radical Labour government.”

The post was subsequently deleted, but not before being widely shared on social media. 

On Saturday morning Labour confirmed that the former Scottish MP had been suspended from the party.

Comments on social media about Mr Sheridan’s comments included: “Try to get your head round this Jim Sheridan stuff- he no longer sympathises with the Jewish community for 3000 years of persecution & pogroms & the holocaust because he doesn't like them sticking up for themselves over antisemitism in the labour party.”

John Woodcock, a former Labour MP, now an Independent, tweeted: “When I was chair of @_LFI I wrote to many colleagues asking to discuss our work. Jim Sheridan was one of the very few who point-blank refused to meet.”

Renfrewshire North and West Labour Party said it “welcomed the suspension of Jim Sheridan from the Labour Party.

“The views expressed by Jim Sheridan in no way reflect the views of the members of the Labour Party in the… constituency.

“There is absolutely no place in the Labour Party for antisemitism. Antisemitism is an evil which must be called out and challenged, whenever and wherever it appears. It is imperative that our party – the Labour Party – is a welcoming home to all members, of all communities."