A raft of Labour MPs have called for Ken Livingstone to be suspended from the party after he said Adolf Hitler was "supporting Zionism" when he rose to power in the 1930s.

Speaking to BBC Radio, he was defending Naz Shah, a Labour MP who was yesterday suspended from the party for allegedly anti-Semitic social media posts, made before she became an MP.

Livingstone insisted her "remarks were over the top, but she's not anti-Semitic", before he made the comments about the Nazi dictator.

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 before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews. Ken Livingstone

Anti-Semitism

The Labour party has come under fire for a perceived anti-Semitism problem, but Livingstone claims in his 47 years in the party he has "never heard anyone say anything anti-Semitic".

He added that "there's been a very well orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticises Israeli policy as anti-Semitic."

A number of Labour MPs - including London mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan - have now called for Ken Livingstone to be suspended from the Labour party.

Meanwhile Rupa Huq, Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton defended suspended MP Naz Shah, saying: "If it is career destroying it seems we are entering a phase where its trial by Twitter.

"As far as I know, Naz Shah did not write anti-semitic tracts or anything, she pressed ‘share’ on a picture which was idiotic and foolish.”