Labour Friends of Israel have signed up some interesting characters as it rebrands ahead of conference, none more so than Rupa Huq. The Labour MP has hardly been a friend in the past – earlier this year she was caught telling an extreme pro-Palestine group that Britain should apologise for helping create the State of Israel:

“1948, that happened under a British government. To my mind, an apology – yes. You could do one. A Labour Government could probably get that through.”

She later retracted her comment.

Her record on anti-Semitism isn’t great either. Huq defended Naz Shah, arguing she “did not write any anti-Semitic tracts”. (Shah had written about “Jews rallying”.) Huq also bizarrely claimed that tweeting a graphic of Israelis being transported out of the Middle East was the same as tweeting a funny photo of Boris Johnson on a zip-wire. She never apologised. A curious choice to be LFI’s new star supporter…