Controversial historian David Irving has come under attack for comments he made after being released from prison in Austria, including a reference to a "n***** brown" Rolls-Royce. Mr Irving made the remarks at a press conference on his return to the UK, after serving a third of a three-year jail sentence for Holocaust denial. The writer also endorsed drunken comments by Hollywood actor Mel Gibson to the effect that Jews had been behind all modern wars.
Labour peer Lord Foulkes, a member of the Policy Council of Labour Friends of Israel, said the police should keep a close watch on Mr Irving's comments to see whether they breached anti-racism laws.
He said: "Mr Irving should be aware that since he was last in the United Kingdom, the laws have been strengthened to deal with people who hold racist views and who stir up antagonism on the basis of either race or religion. That is why the authorities, particularly the police, need to keep a very close and careful watch on him."
Eric Moonman, President of the Zionist Federation and a former Labour MP, said: "He served only 13 months of his three-year sentence. But if he had served 10 years I don't think that would have altered his thinking.
"His latest comments suggest that he is a racist, and I think that we are going to hear more from David Irving about his beliefs in relation to Jews and coloured people. As a prominent Jewish person, I am troubled by this."
Louise Ellman, Labour MP for Liverpool, Riverside, and a key member of the Labour Friends of Israel, said: "These remarks about a Rolls-Royce in particular suggest to me that he is being deliberately offensive and trying to challenge people. There will be an impression that he is trying to incite hatred. He seems to feel that the reduction of his prison sentence exonerates him. It does not."
At the London press conference Mr Irving, 68, vowed to fight back against what he described as a "worldwide attempt" to silence him, after he was released from prison. He said the fact that he was known as a Holocaust denier made his "blood boil" and that he was not anti-Semitic.
He said: "I am not a Holocaust denier. Nobody in their right mind can deny that the Nazis killed millions of Jews." But he claims there is no evidence Hitler knew about the Holocaust, that fewer Jews died at Auschwitz than is commonly believed, and that the "real killing centres" were elsewhere.
"There has been a worldwide attempt to silence me," Mr Irving said. "It hasn't succeeded."