A man suspended by Labour over alleged anti-Semitism has lost his complaint over a newspaper’s report of claims he made that the Holocaust was “exaggerated”.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation has thrown out Pete Gregson’s complaint against The Herald on Sunday over two stories it ran, which reported on his expulsion from his trade union and his subsequent suspension by the Labour Party.

The first story explained that Mr Gregson had been expelled from his union “for anti-Semitic remarks and abuse of one Jewish employee”, while the second attributed the quote the “Holocaust was exaggerated for political gain” to him.

Complaining under Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice, Mr Gregson told IPSO admitted he had called the trade union employee a “crazy Zionist”, but denied that it was a “targeted attack” and abusive as reported by the Glasgow-based paper.

He also claimed the statement regarding the exaggeration of the Holocaust was inaccurately quoted in the articles because he had actually said that he believed “Israel exaggerated the Holocaust for political ends”.

Denying a breach of Code, The Herald on Sunday stated that the articles accurately reported Mr Gregson had been expelled from the union for anti-Semitic remarks and the abuse of a Jewish female employee.

It accepted that it could have provided greater clarity when stating that Mr Gregson stated the “Holocaust was exaggerated”, but it did not accept that this represented a significant inaccuracy.

IPSO acknowledged Mr Gregson’s position that he had criticised one particular country for exaggerating the Holocaust for political gain, but did not find grounds to render the omission of this further contextual information misleading.

It also found the Herald on Sunday had accurately reported the circumstances of Mr Gregson’s expulsion and suspension.

The complaint was not upheld, and the full adjudication can be read here.