The expulsion from the Labour Party of a veteran anti-Zionist academic has sparked a bitter new row over antisemitism within the party.

Leading anti-Zionist activists have used the decision to expel retired professor Moshe Machover, who was born in Tel Aviv, as a rallying cry for claims that allegations of antisemitism against him and others are false.

Mr Machover was told to he was no longer a party member after the publication of his article, “Anti-Zionism does not equal anti-Semitism”, by the Weekly Worker, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB)

At a meeting on Wednesday night of Hampstead and Kilburn branch of the Labour Party, of which Mr Machover was a member, three motions condemning his expulsion were heard, including claims that it had set a “frightening precedent” for a party fighting the “oppression of the Palestinian people”.

Around 20 anti-Zionist activists attended the session and there was a call for calm before the debate started. There was loud applause when one delegate, who said she was Israeli-born, called Mr Machover’s expulsion “ludicrous”.

The motions also called for the activist’s immediate reinstatement and claimed he was a victim of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism which, it was argued, could be used to “stifle free expression and criticism of Israeli policies”.

In a further motion heard at a meeting of the Hove and Portslade branch, it was claimed that Mr Machover’s article —  which quoted Reinhard Heydrich, one of Hitler’s most notorious lieutenants, who suggested in 1935 that the early Nazi government agreed with Zionist ideals — represented a “scholarly critique of Zionism as a political ideology”.

A letter published in the Guardian last week, signed by 139 Labour Party members, including Ken Loach, Brian Eno and Sir Geoffrey Bindman, stated that the “charge of antisemitism against Machover is personally offensive and politically dangerous”.

Labour said Mr Machover was in contravention of party rules due to his involvement in “both Labour Party Marxists and the Communist Party of Great Britain” which left him “ineligible to remain a member of the Labour Party”.

Mr Machover claimed he was never a member of either group and cited the fact that many senior Labour MPs write and speak for outside publications.