Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn defended himself on live television after referring to Hezbollah and Hamas as “friends.” Photo: Screenshot.

A leadership candidate for Britain’s Labour party lost his temper on live television on Monday night when a news anchor asked him to explain his previous reference to terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas as “friends.”

Channel 4 host Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn to confirm whether or not he considered Hamas and Hezbollah to be his “friends.”

Corbyn’s indirect reply prompted Guru-Murthy to interrupt and insist on a straight answer. The MP furiously responded, “Can you allow me to finish?! Do you mind?”

After Guru-Murthy’s repeated attempts to secure a direct response to the question, Corbyn claimed that he used the term “in a collective way” to invite members of the group to speak at an event.

“Does it mean I agree with Hamas and what it does?” he added, “No. Does it mean I agree with Hezbollah and what it does? No.”

The British politician also accused the Channel 4 reporter of “tabloid journalism,” to which Guru-Murthy responded, “That’s not tabloid journalism, that’s putting your own words back to you.”

Corbyn’s testy exchange took place shortly before he canceled an interview with the British-Jewish newspaper The Jewish Chronicle. The publication’s editor, Stephen Pollard, tweeted on Tuesday a link to an article about Corbyn’s withdrawal from the interview after he discovered it would be conducted by Oliver Kamm, a pro-Israel journalist.

Corbyn’s team originally contacted the Jewish newspaper and offered an exclusive interview with the MP. But after they found out who would be doing the interview, his staff informed the Jewish Chronicle that he was no longer interested in speaking to them, according to the report.

Pollard slammed Corbyn on Twitter saying, “He wanted to use JC to pretend he’s just a lovely cuddly misunderstood friend of terrorists.”

Watch Corbyn’s interview on Channel 4 below: