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Ken Livingstone accuses MPs probing antisemitism of being obsessed with Hitler

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Ken Livingstone has submitted a written statement to the Home Affairs committee’s inquiry into antisemitism.

The submission, published today, comes after he gave evidence in person earlier this month and names “Hitler” 11 times.

At the committee hearing, the former London Mayor, who was suspended from the Labour Party for saying Hitler supported Zionism, was challenged by one member with being obsessed with Nazi history.

In turn, Mr Livingstone accused the committee of being “obsessed” with the Nazi period.

In the statement, Mr Livingstone writes: “This was not an inquiry into me or into the Labour Party, but into antisemitism.

“However the committee did not seriously question me about these important issues.

“Instead the overwhelming majority of questions asked of me were about my views on the history of Germany in the 1930s, Hitler, the Nazis, Israel, Zionism and the Labour Party. Committee members seemed to be obsessed with these issues.”

He also appeared to take issue over being questioned of previous incidents, in which he called a Jewish reporter for the Evening Standard a “concentration camp guard” and told the British Jewish Reuben brothers, who are of Iraqi Jewish descent, to “go home”.

Mr Livingstone wrote: “I was also questioned about a number of past events involving myself, going back to the 1980s that bear no relation to the question of whether prejudice against the Jewish community has increased or the dangers facing Jewish people arising from terrorism.”

Read the full statement, here.

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