A pro-Palestinian group has won a legal battle against a Labour MP who implied they were Holocaust deniers.

Friends of Al-Aqsa, one of the groups which invited “blood libel” cleric Raed Saleh to speak at the House of Commons, received a formal apology from Ian Austin MP for a blog he wrote on the site Labour Uncut.

The MP for Dudley North said that FOA had referred to the “so-called” Holocaust. But FOA said the material he was referring to was written by another group, in the 1990s, before FOA was established.

Mr Austin accepted his assertion had been “an error and was untrue. The article had the effect of wrongly labelling FOA as Holocaust deniers and I apologise unreservedly for making this allegation.”

FOA chair Ismail Patel said: “FOA has always reiterated the tragedy of the Holocaust and such false allegations are not only unjust but completely unfounded.”