Margaret Hodge compares Corbyn’s Labour to the Nazis

Dame Margaret Hodge has likened a Labour Party disciplinary investigation into her conduct to the persecution faced by Jews in Nazi Germany.

In an explosive intervention the veteran Labour MP, 73, said she felt scared when she found out Labour’s disciplinary team was investigating her for confronting Mr Corbyn over anti-Semitism last month.

She said it reminded her of “what it felt like to be a Jew in Germany in the 30s.”

Dame Margaret told Sky News: “It’s rather difficult to define but there’s that fear and it reminded me of what my dad used to say.

“He always said to me as a child: ‘You’ve got to keep a packed suitcase at the door Margaret, in case you ever have got to leave in a hurry.’

“And when I heard about the disciplinary, my emotional response resonated with that feeling of fear, that clearly was at the heart of what my father felt when he came to Britain.”

She said Mr Corbyn had got on the “wrong side” of the argument over Palestine - saying he had proved himself to be anti-Semitic.

The bombshell comments erupted the bitter anti-Semitism row tearing the Labour party apart.

Dame Margaret also said how the "cult of Corbynism" had allowed anti-Semitism to bubble to the surface within the party.

She said: "I've never seen it like this, and I think it's a bit scary as well. We've got this sort of growth of populism.

"Whether it's Trump, whether it's Boris Johnson, and now whether it's the cult of Corbynism, which allows these attitudes to emerge and that's what scares me.

"I wasn't alive in the 1930s, there's probably very few people around who were, but it sort of makes you feel if you don't stand up against it then what are you allowing to occur."

Dame Margaret also hit out at Unite boss Len McCluskey, who in a blog accused Jewish community leaders of "intransigent hostility" to Mr Corbyn.

She said: "I find that offensive, I think that's trivialising the issue of anti-Semitism to pretend that somehow we're using that for cheap party political purposes. I'm not, and I think most of those colleagues who are with me, Jews and non-Jewish MPs feel exactly the same as I do."

The party immediately hit back - branding her comparison to Nazi Germany “disconnected from reality”.

A spokesman said: “Jeremy is determined to tackle anti-Semitism in the Labour party, so Jewish people feel it is a warm and welcoming home.

“The comparison of the Labour party’s disciplinary process with the Nazi Germany is so extreme and disconnected from reality, it diminishes the seriousness of the issue of anti-Semitism.”

Dame Margaret, whose relatives were murdered in the Holocaust, faced a lengthy disciplinary hearing by the Labour party after she confronted Mr Corbyn in the Commons chamber about his failure to clean up Labour's anti-Semitism problems.

The probe was only dropped after Dame Margaret threatened the party with legal action.