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Defiant Ken Livingstone today insisted he had done nothing wrong as Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership was plunged into fresh turmoil over the anti-Semitism row.

Mr Livingstone was suspended by Labour after claiming Hitler supported Zionism “before he went mad” but Mr Corbyn’s deputy went further and demanded new rules to purge anti-Semitism from the party.

Speaking to the Evening Standard exclusively today, Mr Livingstone stood by his controversial words.

“Everything I said yesterday was true and I will be presenting the academic book about that to the Labour Party inquiry,” he said.

Mr Livingstone’s defence is expected to rest on the writings of a controversial American Marxist historian Lenni Brenner, who claims there was collusion between the Nazis and early campaigners for a Jewish homeland.

"Everything I said yesterday was true" Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone

Labour’s leader was hoping to regain the initiative after his worst crisis yet by arranging weekend TV interview to announce a crackdown on all forms of racism, including anti-Jewish comments.

But Tom Watson, his powerful elected deputy, pre-empted him this morning with a radio interview calling for new party structures and selection rules.

Mr Watson also strongly condemned as “vile, offensive and crass” the comments made by Mr Livingstone yesterday.

Mr Livingstone was later confronted outside the BBC’s Millbank studios by Labour MP John Mann who accused him of being a “Nazi apologist” in front of TV cameras.

The denunciation by Mr Watson contrasted with the hesitation of Mr Corbyn, an old friend of the former Mayor of London, who suspended Mr Livingstone but has declined to say what should be done with him.

In his powerful intervention, Mr Watson left no doubt in the minds of MPs that he thinks Mr Livingstone must renounce such views or be expelled.

Asked if he thought Mr Livingstone’s comments were anti-Semitic, he said: “I personally think that Ken Livingstone was straying into that territory.

“But they were certainly offensive and provocative. To link Hitler and Zionism in the way he did must have been done to create offence.”

The party’s National Executive will decide Mr Livingstone’s fate.

“But no-one is in any doubt that Ken Livingstone’s behaviour yesterday has let down the Labour Party, let down those thousands of candidates who are standing in an election next Thursday and caused deep offence, in particular to the Jewish community in Britain but also to people out there who expect the Labour Party to adhere to higher standards,” said Mr Watson.

Mr Watson said he and Mr Corbyn had “both been talking to representatives of the Jewish community to look at whether Labour’s own structures can be improved to make sure that we send a very clear signal to people in our party that we will have a zero-tolerance approach to anti-Semitism”.

That could mean more intensive questioning of potential candidates and “issues like ‘are our rules robust enough and our procedures’”.

He said there must be a “zero-tolerance” approach to anti-Semitism ad a “clear signal” that the problem was acknowledged and was being addressed.

Labour MP Wes Streeting, the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on anti-Semitism, welcomed Mr Watson’s remarks. “I thought Tom Watson’s response to the anti-Semitism challenge facing Labour was thoughtful and honest,” he said.

“That’s how we need to respond to a genuinely serious problem in Labour, that cannot be addressed by the ostrich mentality of burying heads in the sand.”

Mr Corbyn’s spokesman said “Team Corbyn” had discussed what needed to be done with Mr Watson and pledged: “Jeremy will announce further initiatives in the near future.”

But Mr Corbyn was not yet ready to endorse Mr Watson’s comments about Mr Livingstone or agree with his call for a commission led by former Kinnock aide Baroness Royall to be put in charge of recommending action.

The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews strongly condemned Mr Livingstone. Jonathan Arkush told Today: “What Ken Livingstone deliberately did was to draw an equation between Nazism and Zionism.

“He therefore crossed a line into certainly what most people would regard as distinctly anti-Semitic.”

Urging Mr Corbyn to get a grip on the problem, he highlighted the Labour leader’s past praise for his “friends” in Hamas and Hezbollah and said: “I also want Jeremy Corbyn finally to say that his own meetings with anti-Semites in the past, before he became leader, were inappropriate and should not be repeated.”

Mr Livingstone left his house in Cricklewood, north west London, the morning in jeans and a khaki coat to walk his dog, Coco.

Shadow home secretary Andy Burnham admitted Labour should have acted more quickly over anti-Semitic allegations involving councillors, activists and MPs.

“These allegations, when they are surfacing, have not been dealt with properly and quickly enough. They need to be dealt with much more speedily in the future,” he told BBC1’s Question Time.

Labour MPs say there is a schism in Mr Corbyn’s office between pragmatists and those who do not think action should be taken. “Jeremy is not good at making ddecisions when his team are split,” said one.