Labour’s shadow Brexit ­minister, Dianne Hayter, has been sacked after she likened the “bunker mentality” around Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership to the “last days of Hitler”.

Lady Hayter, Labour’s deputy leader in the Lords, was stripped of her shadow cabinet position after she attacked Corbyn’s inner circle and its critical response to a BBC Panorama programme investigating antisemitism complaints within the party. “To compare the Labour leader and Labour party staff working to elect a Labour government to the Nazi regime is truly contemptible, and grossly insensitive to Jewish staff in particular,” a Labour party spokesman said. He added that Hayter had been sacked “with immediate effect” for her “deeply offensive remarks about Jeremy Corbyn and his office”.

Hayter, who remains the party’s deputy leader in the Lords because it is an elected position, made the remarks at a meeting of Labour First – a ­centre-left group of MPs and activists – on Tuesday. Addressing the meeting, she said: “Those of you who haven’t [read the book] will have watched the film ­Bunker, about the last days of ­Hitler, of how you stop receiving into the inner group any information which suggests that things are not going the way you want.”

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Those around Corbyn had a “bunker mentality”, she said, accusing them of refusing to give key information to the party’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) as well as the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The row came after Theresa May called on ­Corbyn to apologise for his “failure to deal with racism” in his party. Corbyn hit back, saying Labour was totally opposed to racism. He called on May to deal with Islamophobia in the Conservative party.

The Ilford North Labour MP, Wes Streeting, said Hayter’s sacking was a “gross over-reaction to a comment that was actually about Jeremy Corbyn’s bunker mentality”.

He added: “This sacking only reinforces her point. The speed of this sacking shows that Labour’s leader is quick to act to protect his feelings, but slow to act against racists. The double standards are extraordinary.

“Dianne Hayter remains the elected deputy leader of the Labour group in the House of Lords, regardless of ­Jeremy Corbyn’s purge.”

The longstanding Labour critic Luke Akehurst was also among the attendees of Tuesday’s Labour First meeting, the Huffington Post reported. “It isn’t a bunker, it is the last days of Saigon,” he said. “It’s like they are trying to get on the helicopters trying to kick off the incumbents in these parliamentary seats, because they know their days of control are numbered.”

Hayter was among four senior peers who on Monday wrote to Corbyn with an offer of establishing a panel to review the allegations of former party staffers made on Panorama and to “provide advice and support on how a properly independent complaints process could be set up and run”. The others were Angela Smith; the party’s leader in the Lords, Toby ­Harris; and chief whip Tommy McAvoy. In it they set out their view amid consternation about the Panorama allegations that the leader’s office interfered in complaints about antisemitism. Eight former employees appeared on the programme to discuss the handling of complaints. The party denies the allegations and complained to the BBC about the programme.

After the documentary aired last Monday, a Labour party spokesman insisted the whistleblowers featured are “disaffected former officials including those who have always opposed Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.” He added: “Labour is taking decisive action against antisemitism, doubling the number of staff dedicated to dealing with complaints and cases. And since Jennie Formby became general secretary, the rate at which antisemitism cases have been dealt with has increased fourfold.”