Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone
Former London Mayor Ken LivingstoneReuters

Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone was confronted by an angry fellow Labour Party member inside the British Parliament building Thursday, after comments he made defending an MP suspended for anti-Semitism, during which he claimed that Hitler "supported Zionism."

Livingstone was speaking to the LBC radio station - whose host James O'Brian gave him a relatively easy time and even expressed some sympathy for him - before the tame interview was brought to an abrupt end by MP John Mann who, upon noticing Livingstone, proceeded to shout him down as a "lying racist" and an anti-Semite.

Listen - Angry MP interrupts Ken Livingstone interview:

Mann, who heads the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Anti-Semitism, continued haranguing Livingstone even after the interview, in a clash which played out in front of stunned journalists.

Part of it was caught on film by senior ITV News editor Chris Ship.

In the video, a visibly angry Mann can be heard calling Livingstone a "lying, disgusting Nazi apologist" and a "disgusting racist" for his latest comments, as Livingstone walks away grinning.

He also branded Livingstone "a f***ing disgrace", according to another senior journalist at the scene - Channel 4 correspondent Michael Crick - who described it as "the most amazing face to face row I've seen in 36 years of political journalism."

Later, in an interview with Sky News, Mann slammed Livingstone as an "anti-Semite" who "is peddling neo-Nazi conspiracy theories that most neo-Nazis don't peddle now!"

Click below to watch:

Livingstone clashed with critics later in the day on BBC, and doubled-down on his comments:

Livingstone came under fire for his comments, in which he justified MP Naz Shah's call for a mass-deportation of Israeli Jews by claiming that Adolf Hitler had initially proposed something similar and that, in his words, "Hitler was supporting Zionism."

He has previously come under fire for anti-Semitic comments, including claims that Jews don't vote for Labour because they are all rich.