Former Labour London Mayor Ken Livingstone Suffering From Alzheimer’s, Family Confirm

Former Labour London mayor Ken Livingstone is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, his family have confirmed.

According to family members who spoke to the PA news agency, 78-year-old Ken Livingstone is “well cared for by his family and friends” while he leads a “private life” in retirement.

In 2000, Mr. Livingstone was chosen as London’s first directly elected mayor, a position he held for eight years.

In 2018, after being accused of antisemitism, which he has vigorously denied, Livingstone resigned from the Labour Party. In recent months, he attempted to sue the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), but this week, he and ex-Labour councillor Pam Bromley agreed with the EHRC for all parties to withdraw their lawsuits and cover their own costs.

In its report into anti-semitism in the Labour Party in October 2020, the EHRC had singled out Mr Livingstone and Ms Bromley for allegedly having “contributed” to “unlawful harassment related to Jewish race and religion.”

The two politicians brought a legal challenge against the equalities watchdog, hoping to overturn parts of the report.

Now, however, the two politicians have accepted a deal offered by the EHRC, in which each side withdraws from the case and bears its own costs. No compensation has been paid and the report will remain unchanged.

It is understood the EHRC legal costs were over £215,000, while the Labour Party and the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) also spent tens of thousands of pounds in legal fees.

Mr Livingstone’s and Ms Bromley’s costs amounted to £35,000 and were funded from a fighting fund established at the end of 2019 by former Labour MP Chris Williamson from the costs he won from the Labour Party.

An EHRC spokesperson said: “We firmly stand by our robust and fair investigation, the findings of which were accepted in full by the Labour Party.

“We welcome the decision to withdraw this judicial review claim, with disappointment at the valuable time and resource that we have had to expend on defending it.”

Writing in the far-left newspaper ‘Morning Star’, Livingstone addressed the withdrawal.

“In its 2020 report into alleged anti-semitism in the Labour Party, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) claimed that we had “contributed” to Labour’s “unlawful harassment” of its Jewish members,” he wrote.

“After a lengthy legal process, in which we challenged the government quango’s finding against us, we have accepted a settlement offer made by the EHRC, bringing the judicial review to a close.

“We firmly support freedom of expression, and we were worried that the purpose of the EHRC report was to shut down criticism of Israel.”

Mr Livingstone, pictured here with Neil Kinnock, has been a prominent figure on the left of the Labour Party.

Alzheimer’s is a condition that affects the brain and is the most common cause of dementia.