Jeremy Corbyn has been praised by the ex-leader of the BNP and a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan after a video emerged in which he claimed that British Zionists “don’t understand English irony”.

Nick Griffin and David Duke rallied behind the Labour leader on Friday morning amid a backlash over the remarks, which were made during a speech in 2013.

Mr Corbyn faced widespread condemnation when footage emerged of him appearing to suggest that Zionist-supporting Jews were not fully accustomed to English culture.

Speaking alongside Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian Authority representative in Britain, Mr Corbyn referred to one of the envoy’s recent speeches, which he said had been “dutifully recorded by the thankfully silent Zionists who were in the audience”.

He continued: “[They] berated him afterwards for what he’d said. So clearly two problems. One is that they don’t want to study history and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either.

“Manuel does understand English irony and uses it very, very effectively so I think they need two lessons which we can help them with.”