Labour sent a "terminal" message to the British Jewish community by deciding not to expel Ken Livingstone over alleged anti-semitic remarks, campaigners told IBTimes UK on Wednesday (5 March).

The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA) described a disciplinary panel's decision to suspend the former Mayor of London for an additional year as a "painful" and "brazen betrayal".

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Livingstone had claimed Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had supported Zionism, the movement to establish a Jewish state, in the 1930s.

"It's been a long period now where Jews have been waiting, fighting to hear the Labour Party reverse some of it rhetoric about Jews and to act firmly and decisively on antisemitism . This really is a kick in the teeth now," said Joe Glasman, head of political and government investigations at the CAA.

"The Labour Party had some sort of means of redemption to show that the tide was turning. The Jews have been affiliated with the Labour Party since it was founded."

He added: "This is a kind of moment at which the party, as it is now, is over for the Jewish community. It feels like a brazen, painful betrayal."

Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, who led a 2016 probe into anti-Semitism within Labour, said: "I hope people might now revisit my report and remind themselves of better ways to argue about difficult issues without compromising our values of solidarity, tolerance and respect."

But the ruling from the National Constitutional Committee, which prevents Livingstone standing for public office for Labour, could hit the party in the opinion polls ahead of the local and metro-mayor elections on 5 May.

A 2016 Survation poll for The Jewish Chronicle found that just 8.5% of British Jews would back Labour at a general election, while more than 38% of the respondents gave the party five out of five (the worst mark) for anti-Semitism among members and representatives.

Jeremy Corbyn