A Labour candidate has insisted she believes her band's song that includes the anti-Israel lyric "from the river to the sea" is not antisemitic.

Alana Bates, who is contesting the Conservative/Liberal Democrat marginal seat of St Ives in Cornwall, played guitar in a band called The Tribunes that performed a song that included the words "from the river to the sea" and said: "Justice should not have to wait, Israel’s an apartheid state, Justice should not have to wait, Israel is a racist state".

The chant "from the river to the sea" is a common refrain by anti-Israel campaigners who advocate the dismantling of the Jewish state. It has long been a Hamas rallying cry.

But Ms Bates told the Sun: "It’s not a political manifesto. I didn’t write it for a start. It’s a song.

"At no point during the song does it say Jewish people out of the Middle East. At no point does it talk about Jewish people at all. It’s about Israel.

"The song says that Israel is a racist state. I would personally say that the government policies of Israel are racist."

She also said she removed the song from digital platforms on the advice of Labour HQ.

Independent Cornwall Councillor Tim Dwelly tweeted the song was "repulsive racism" and that Ms Bates should be "expelled by Labour immediately".