CORBYN’S THREAT TO KICK OUT REBELS

As police warn Angela Eagle over her safety, Labour leader says MPs face deselection

ANGELA Eagle was forced to cancel her constituency surgeries following threats from hard-Left activists – hours after Jeremy Corbyn said rebellious MPs could face deselection.

With infighting between the Corbynites and moderates intensifying, the former leadership challenger revealed she had been told to cut back on her surgeries on police advice.

The move came a week after a brick was thrown through a window of her local party’s office after she announced her intention to stand against Mr Corbyn.

It also came on the day that Mr Corbyn launched his re-election bid, insisting that once he had seen off the challenge from former shadow cabinet minister Owen Smith, it will be ‘the job, the duty, the responsibility’ of every Labour MP to ‘get behind the party’.

The hard-Left leader offered the ‘hand of friendship’ to moderate MPs who voted against him in a confidence motion. But he confirmed they could face a re-selection process ahead of the 2020 general election.

Miss Eagle, the former shadow business secretary, is now backing Mr Smith. Earlier this week, her local Labour Party was suspended amid allegations of bullying and abuse.

Now she says she has been advised to change her surgery arrangements after receiving abuse and threats.

She has stopped walk-in advice sessions for now – although her Walchoose lasey constituents will still be able to make an appointment to see her.

Other MPs have also cancelled walk-in surgeries in the wake of last month’s murder of Batley and Spen Labour MP Jo Cox.

Miss Eagle told the Liverpool Echo the advice on public surgeries came from counter-terrorism officers.

‘Because we have been getting so much abuse direct to the office, and the advice surgeries are normally done in public, the police have sent me an email advising me to cancel them,’ she said.

‘The police basically think it might not be safe – they do not want them to go ahead at all.

‘I think it’s also in the aftermath of what happened to Jo Cox. I am going to take their advice this time but people can still contact my office by phone and email. They are talking to me about future arrangements in terms of security.’

She added: ‘It’s with great reluctance that I’m doing this but the safety of my staff is paramount.’

Critics of Mr Corbyn fear they could face the prospect of mandatory reselection from their local parties to be allowed to stand again, and the leader confirmed that, because of the Government’s plans to cut the number of Commons seats, there would be a ‘full and open’ process to candidates. After his launch speech, Mr Corbyn was asked to rule out supporting mandatory re-selection, the process which could give his supporters in the party’s grassroots the ability to oust his critics by replacing them as Labour candidates.

But he confirmed that all Labour MPs would face re-selection when new parliamentary boundaries – reducing the number of seats from 650 to 600 – come into force in 2018.

‘If this parliament runs to the full term, then the new boundaries will be the basis on which the elections take place and in that case there would be a full selection process in every constituency,’ he said.

‘But the sitting MP for any part or any substantial part of the new boundary would have the opportunity to put their name forward.’

Mr Corbyn is favourite to win the postal ballot of Labour’s members – whose ranks he said had swelled to more than 500,000 – as well as the 183,000 people who signed up this week as registered supporters and the affiliated supporters in the unions.

But Mr Smith has the nominations of 162 of the party’s MPs – some 70 per cent – along with half of Labour’s MEPs.

And the Saving Labour movement, which is backing Mr Smith’s campaign, claimed the new supporters who signed up this week would be split between the rival candidates rather than being staunchly pro-Corbyn.

The party leader insisted he could bring Labour back together after the revolt against him at Westminster and lead it into government, claiming ‘this party is going places’ and was ‘capable of winning a general election’.

He said: ‘There is a huge amount of talent on the Labour benches. We are part of but not the entirety of the Labour Party.

He there were those in the party who ‘may not agree with me politically, may not even like me personally’ but ‘I hold out the hand of friendship to them all, because come September when this election is done and dusted, there will still be a Tory government in office.

‘It’s the job, it’s the duty, it’s the responsibility of every Labour MP to get behind the party at that point.’

Mr Corbyn had a dig at his rival’s former job with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, saying: ‘I hope Owen will fully agree with me that our NHS should be free at the point of use, should be run by publicly employed workers, and medical research shouldn’t be farmed out to big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and others.’

Mr Corbyn has lost the support of one of his luvvie followers, former BBC newsreader Anna Ford, it was reported yesterday. Miss Ford let it be known she was a supporter last summer, before his landslide election.

But earlier this week she admitted she had made a mistake. Her local Labour party apparently voted to back Owen Smith after a passionate appeal by Miss Ford.

Comment – Page 14

‘We’ve been getting so much abuse’