Momentum in 19 key marginals

A HARD-Left plot to install candidates loyal to Jeremy Corbyn in Labour’s top target parliamentary seats can be exposed today.

The radical party group Momentum is working with the trade unions to replace moderates with hardliners in Tory-held constituencies it believes are winnable.

Unite, Britain’s biggest union, has provided training to help favoured candidates win the hotly contested selections and has offered financing for campaigns.

Political organisers employed by the union, led by Len McCluskey, have been deployed to assist the would-be MPs and rally support for them. Long-standing Labour members say Momentum supporters have flooded local party meetings after being mobilised online.

Candidates picked to stand include a vicar nicknamed the ‘Red Rev’, a human rights barrister, a former rail union organiser and a local council leader who signed a pledge of loyalty to the Labour leader.

Momentum founder Jon Lansman has expressed his delight as candidates backed by his group, which grew out of Mr Corbyn’s 2015 leadership campaign, have been victorious. Labour has begun picking parliamentary candidates for the next general election in its top target seats, with plans to have held selections in the 75 most marginal constituencies by April.

An analysis by the Daily Mail has found 19 of the 36 candidates chosen so far have close links to Momentum or the unions.

However, they have failed to get all their candidates selected as they have struggled to mobilise enough supporters in some seats.

In Watford, for example, Unite failed to get its choice picked as the candidate after complaints from local members that the selection was being ‘rigged’.