Cameron launches furious attack on Corbyn as anti-Semitism row dominates final push to polling day

Mr Cameron also turned up the political heat on Labour’s London mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan – heavily tipped to beat the Tories’ Zac Goldsmith to replace Boris Johnson in City Hall – by berating him for repeatedly sharing a platform with Sulaiman Ghani, an imam who is an alleged supporter of so-called Islamic State.

READ MORE: Labour comes under fresh pressure in anti-Semitism row

But Mr Corbyn hit back, insisting he did not approve of Hamas and Hezbollah, making clear any anti-Semitic organisation was “no friend of mine” while he defended Mr Khan against what he branded were Mr Cameron’s “systematic smears” against his colleague.

The clash came as Labour suspended pending an investigation two more councillors over claims of anti-Semitism: Terry Kelly, who sits on Renfrewshire Council, and Miqdad Al-Nuaimi, a councillor in Newport, South Wales.

During the eve-of-poll Commons question-time, Mr Corbyn sought to make political points about the raft of elections but the PM turned the exchanges back onto the racism row and denounced the Labour leader’s reference to Hamas and Hezbollah as “friends,” saying the two groups were terrorist organisations, which believed in killing Jews.

“That’s why whatever the right honourable gentleman says about combating anti-Semitism in the Labour Party will mean nothing until he withdraws the remark that they were his friends. He needs to do it and he needs to do it today,” insisted the PM to Conservative cries of “withdraw”.

READ MORE: Scottish Labour councillor suspended over anti-Semitism claims

Mr Corbyn insisted anyone who committed racist acts or was anti-Semitic was “not a friend of mine” and he urged the PM to think about his own conduct and that of the Tory Party in “systematically smearing” Mr Khan by linking him with Mr Ghani, who turned out to be "an active Conservative supporter".

The Labour leader suggested Mr Cameron reflect on the words of his Tory colleague Lord Lansley, whom he quoted as saying racism was “’endemic’” with the Conservative Party.

"We have set up a commission of inquiry. I suggest he might think about doing the same thing," Mr Corbyn told the PM.

Later, a spokesman for the Labour leader explained how Mr Corbyn's use of the term "friends" to refer to Hamas and Hezbollah was "about a diplomatic term of address in a meeting about peace and reconciliation".

Elsewhere, Alex Salmond on his weekly radio show expressed concern about the references to Mr Ghani, noting how the PM had accused Mr Khan of having shared several platforms with the imam, who allegedly supported so-called Islamic State but that it turned out had also been invited to Tory meetings and pictured with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith.

READ MORE: London mayoral candidates Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan clash over race

“Now No 10 are saying he wasn’t supporting Islamic State but was for an Islamic state. Either this imam…is a dreadful extremist, in which case why is he being invited to Conservative Party meetings, or, alternatively, he is being misrepresented by the Prime Minister, in which case why is he being used as an instrument for smearing other democratic politicians.”

The MP for Gordon added: “Call me old-fashioned, I don’t think the Prime Minister should be lowering himself or demeaning his office to fling this Lynton Crosby stuff across the chamber. It’s nonsense.”

Meantime, Tony Blair also weighed into the anti-Semitism row, insisting there was "no place" for such racism in the party, which he made clear was dead against “that type of prejudice and that sort of poison”.

In a separate development, Labour backed away from Mr Corbyn's bold claim that the party was "not going to lose seats" in the Super-Thursday elections.

An aide said what the Labour leader had meant to say was that the party was "not in the business of losing seats".

He added: “I'm saying what he intended to say…”