The Adjudication Panel for England have ruled that Ken Livingstone acted in an “unnecessarily insensitive” manner when he likened an Evening Standard reporter to “a concentration camp guard” and suspended him from office for a period of four weeks starting March 1st.
The complaint was made by the Jewish Board of Deputies following an exchange between the reporter, Oliver Finegold, and Mayor Livingstone.
A second charge of failing to respect others was dismissed at an earlier hearing.
Mr Livinsgtone has previously said his comments were not intended to cause offence to the wider Jewish community.
Responding to the suspension Nicky Gavron, London’s Deputy Mayor, said:
“This decision is absurd – and strikes at the roots of democracy.
Millions of Londoners elected the Mayor – and three unelected officials remove him.
An elected Mayor should only be removed by the law or by the electorate. Not by an unelected body.
This issue should never have come to the standards board in the first place – it was given a thorough airing at the time.
But it has been blown out of all proportion.
What Londoners care about most are issues like safer streets, more buses and a cleaner environment.”
