Labour suspend Momentum activist for saying Zionists 'involved with Nazis'
A black-power activist has had her Labour membership stopped after publishing an open letter to Jeremy Corbyn supporting Ken Livingstone
June 8, 2016, 3:39 pm 1 Edit
Marlene Ellis (Source: Marlene Ellis on Facebook)
A black-power Momentum activist has been suspended from Labour after saying that Zionists were "involved with Nazis" and that Labour was "seeking to curry favour with… the pro-Zionist lobby in and beyond the media".
Marlene Ellis, the chief executive of Momentum Black ConneXions (MBC) published an open letter to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn calling former London mayor Ken Livingstone's own suspension "an outrage," after he said Hitler was a Zionist.
Addressing Corbyn, Ellis wrote: "It is our belief that your statement… plays right into the hands of Zionist criminals."
On suspended Labour MP Naz Shah, who has apologised for suggesting Israeli Jews be "transported" to the U.S, Ellis said: "Her statement is not so outrageous within the historical context and involvement of Zionists with Nazis."
In the blog post, dated 4 May, Ellis referred to a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year, in which he said that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem advised Hitler to "burn" Germany's Jews.
"There appears to be an attempt to reduce the blame of the Jewish Holocaust… onto one Palestinian," she wrote. "What Zionism has become perverted into is racist."
Ellis, who denounces Labour's "white supremacist elite," took to Facebook to say she had been suspended – the latest in an increasingly long line of Labour party members to face disciplinary investigation for her comments.
Marlene Ellis
Zionist lobby
Ken Livingstone
Labour Antisemitism