Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s attempt to join the Green Party and potentially run as their candidate has been rejected, the UK Jewish News reported.
Livingstone, 76, left the Labour Party three years ago after it extended his suspension over a 2016 assertion that Adolf Hitler had supported Zionism in the 1930s.
The party’s National Executive Committee had prolonged Livingstone’s one-year suspension past its April 27, 2018 expiration, until the conclusion of an internal probe into his conduct over allegations that his claims were antisemitic or otherwise offensive to Jews.
The former London mayor repeatedly refused to apologize for the comments, even after being harangued as a "racist, Hitler-apologist" by an MP from his own party.
In an interview in January, Livingstone said he had applied to join the Green Party.
According to the Jewish News, the Greens interviewed him and he told them that he wished to become a leader within the party and expressed interest in again running as a candidate for London mayor. However, party insiders questioned Livingstone on his controversial statements about Jews and antisemitism, and asked him to clarify his intentions on repairing his very strained relationship with the Jewish community.
In January, Livingstone told the Guardian that he believed the Greens “thought that if they brought me in they’d be accused of being antisemitic.”
Livingstone’s application to join the Greens went through a regional council internal consultation process before being rejected.