Ken Livingstone has been suspended from the Labour Party for another year after claiming Adolf Hitler supported Zionism in the 1930s.

The former London mayor faced a disciplinary hearing for engaging in conduct which Labour officials said was "grossly detrimental" to the party.

Earlier in the day, the veteran left-winger said he expected to be expelled by the national constitutional committee because the disciplinary panel was dominated by "right-wingers".

After learning his fate, he told Sky News: "As I am not seeking to return to parliament or to stand for the local council it doesn't make a great deal of change."

He compared the experience at the hearing to "sitting through a court in North Korea - no one was listening to anything we were actually saying."


He added: "I would have been angry if I was expelled. I don't think anyone expected this result."

What Livingstone actually said about Hitler

Mr Livingstone, who had threatened to launch a judicial review if he was kicked out, said he would now consult with lawyers about his legal position.

He has been suspended since last April after making the controversial remarks.

At the time, Mr Livingstone told a radio interview: "Let's remember when Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism.

"This is before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews."

A Labour Party spokesman said: "The National Constitutional Committee of the Labour Party has found that all three charges of a breach of the Labour Party's rule 2.1.8 by Ken Livingstone have been found proved.

"The NCC consequently determined that the sanction for the breach of Labour Party rules will be suspension from holding office and representation within the Labour Party for two years.

"Taking account of the period of administrative suspension already served the period of suspension will end on 27 April 2018."

Livingstone Clashes With Mann

But Labour MP Wes Streeting said the NCC decision "makes a complete mockery of the claim that Labour takes a zero tolerance approach to anti-semitism".

He added: "There are still a great many of us in the Labour Party who will never tolerate anti-semitism."

Jeremy Newmark, Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, has told Sky News "literally dozens" of his group have contacted him to say they're considering quitting the party in protest at the decision.

After Mr Livingstone's comments last April, there were furious scenes where Labour MP John Mann confronted Mr Livingstone in Westminster and shouted at him that he was a "disgrace" and a "Nazi apologist".

Mr Livingstone has repeatedly defended his remarks, saying they had been misinterpreted by hostile Labour politicians and the media.

The former mayor insisted he had never said the Nazi leader was a Zionist, only that Hitler supported Zionism.

"That's a simple statement of historical fact," Mr Livingstone said.