Jeremy Corbyn's brother: Ken Livingstone's Hitler remarks were 'misunderstood'

Ken Livingstone was suspended from the Labour party over remarks he made about Hitler
Rob Stothard/Getty Images
Joseph Watts4 May 2016
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Jeremy Corbyn’s brother today backed Ken Livingstone and his inflammatory claims about Hitler and Zionism.

Piers Corbyn said now-suspended Mr Livingstone had been “misunderstood” and that there is “too much sensitivity” around anti-Semitism.

His words come as it emerged he retweeted a message stating that critics of the ex-London mayor are “pandering to Israel”.

Mr Livingstone sparked fury by claiming Adolf Hitler was “supporting Zionism” before he “went mad and ended up killing six million Jews”.

After MPs demanded action he was suspended pending an investigation for “bringing the party into disrepute”.

Piers Corbyn told the Standard: “I think Ken has been misunderstood, because he has been talking actual history which now looks incomprehensible.

“We can’t understand now the context those things happened in, but there is numbers of historical documents around which seem to bear out some things that Ken has said.

“But they’ve been taken out of context.”

Piers Corbyn has defended Ken Livingstone's remarks about Jewish people and Hitler 
Rex

Asked whether he thought Mr Livingstone’s comments were anti-Semitic, he said: “You have to look into the whole history of what happened in Germany.

“The relationship between Nazis and the Jews, and Russia, have been complicated and there have been serious alliances, or mutual supports, or dealings which are difficult to understand now.

“But there have been arrangements that went on, or certainly some type of understandings going on between Hitler and Zionists.”

The Labour leader’s brother, who is not currently a party member, previously caused anger when he said Louise Ellman MP’s calls for tougher action on anti-Semitism in Labour were “absurd”.

Regarding the current furore surrounding the party, he told the Standard: “There is far too much sensitivity on it.”

In the fallout following Mr Livingstone’s comments, Piers Corbyn retweeted a supportive message written by another user: “No one with an iota of fairness wud consider #KenL remarks anti-semitic- unless pandering to #Israel [sic].”

When asked about the tweet he said he was “not totally informed as to everything going on in this field.”

He added: “I do retweet things sometimes that I just want people to see, and not necessarily agree with a hundred per cent or even at all.

“But I think people should certainly see that comment.”

It has been reported that up to 50 members have been suspended from Labour over anti-Semitic or racist comments.

Earlier this week three Labour councillors were suspended over comments about Israel, repeating the action taken against Mr Livingstone and MP Naz Shah.

Burnley councillor Shah Hussain had tweeted to an Israeli footballer: “You and your country doing the same thing that hitler did to ur race in WW2 [sic].”

Salim Mulla, from Blackburn, is said to have made comments including one in which he wrote: “Zionist Jews are a disgrace to humanity”.

Nottingham councillor Ilyas Aziz was suspended over a Facebook post saying Jews should be ‘relocated’ from Israel to the US, which he denies writing.

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