This could be it for Ken Livingstone and the Labour party. To be cast into the wilderness by his party once, as he was before winning the London mayoralty as an independent at the turn of the century, may have been survivable, particularly as then, he was more sinned against than sinning. But this time, suspended by those he would always have called his friends, from a Labour party run by the left, the wilderness may claim him.
He will need to apologise and to do so in humble fashion. Therein lies a problem – he hates to apologise. He loathes reverse gear, especially when called upon to find it by media or political opponents for whom he has no respect. “I cannot say to you words I do not believe in my heart,” he once declared, in the white heat of another self-ignited firestorm. And yet he will also hate the idea of life outside Labour, cut adrift from the structures and people that sustain his political life. He is lodged between the rock and that hard place.
But no one who has studied Livingstone in recent years can claim complete surprise. He is a man happiest in the limelight, discomforted by the periphery. Despite initial indications at the outset of the Corbyn regime that Livingstone would be a key figure, he has not been so. The light does not find him so he attracts it, like a faded primetime star reduced to appearing on reality shows.
He will have felt impelled to defend Naz Shah, not least because he customarily defends minority and leftwing figures criticised by the establishment or media. A previous beneficiary of the maxim that his enemy’s enemy is his friend was Lutfur Rahman, the ousted and disgraced mayor of Tower Hamlets.
And few will have been surprised that when Livingstone chose to mount a public defence of Shah, he resorted to inflammatory imagery. It is his way. It attracts the light. This is the man who said that members of the Saudi ruling royal family should be hung from lamp-posts.
No one will be astonished that he waded into the Shah controversy – an issue of acute sensitivity – with such glaring insensitivity. As mayor, as we know, he likened a Jewish newspaper reporter who legitimately sought comment from him to a “concentration camp guard”. He only narrowly escaped sanction from the standards watchdog by arguing that, as he spoke, he was off duty because he had already donned his hat and coat.
And no one should be surprised that once again he referenced Hitler. Seasoned observers would have been surprised if he had not, for he does so repeatedly, regardless of the anxiety it causes. Prior to the 2012 mayoral election, he said the battle between himself and Boris Johnson was akin to “the great struggle between Churchill and Hitler”. Framing an economic critique, he said that worldwide capitalism killed more people annually than Hitler did. Explaining an acknowledged pattern, he said Hitler is a reference point for Britons of his generation – a ready shorthand for all that is wicked or undesirable. He has always played down the extent to which such rhetorical flourishes give offence.
With a light shining brighter in his direction than he might wish, Livingstone will again face charges of antisemitism. He will deny them now, as in the past. He will once again seek to make the distinction between what he sees as antisemitism, which he would deprecate, and legitimate criticism of the government of Israel. Many might do the same and rightly so, for such a distinction exists.
But what he will struggle to deny is that once again, his own quirks and a lack of care and precision in his language have allowed those charges to be repeated, and at a time when both he and his party are vulnerable to them. He will have to explain why he is a repeat offender, knowing that each time his explanations seem less credible.
The wound is self-inflicted. It was unnecessary. And if this time it proves fatal to his place in the party and public life, he has only himself to blame.