London, England
London, EnglandISTOCK

The UK Labour Party has suspended a councillor who accused the party’s leader Keir Starmer of “following commands from Israel.”

West Lancashire Councillor Ron Cooper said in a January 5 social media post that Starmer “stands for nothing but [a] purge of socialists and following commands from Israel,” the UK Jewish News reported.

Cooper also wrote that “if Corbyn was Labour leader again then hundreds of thousands of members would rejoin the party.”

”Councillor Ron Cooper has been suspended by the Labour Party pending an investigation and has had the Labour Whip removed by West Lancashire Labour Group and currently sits as an independent councillor,” the West Lancashire Labour Group said in a statement on Thursday. “There will be no further comment made while the investigation is underway.”

A spokesperson for Labour told the BBC that the party was taking the complaint seriously.

"They are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures and any appropriate action is taken," she said.

Starmer has made it his mission since becoming Labour leader in 2020 to rid the party of antisemitism in the post-Corbyn era.

(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)