Labour Left: Use every weapon to deselect traitor MPs
Most have nothing to fear, says Corbyn, but moderates warn party’s future is at risk
LABOUR MPS were yesterday forced to run a gauntlet of hard-Left activists calling them “traitors” and demanding that they be deselected for their opposition to Jeremy Corbyn.
Groups including the Labour Party Marxists and Socialist Labour were stationed outside the entrance to the party conference in Liverpool, demanding that moderates not be allowed to fight the next general election.
The groups called on their members to “use all the weapons at our disposal” to take on the MPs who tried to depose Mr Corbyn.
Mr Corbyn has repeatedly refused to speak out against deselections in the wake of his leadership victory on Saturday. He said yesterday that the “vast majority” of MPs should have no concerns about being removed by their constituency associations.
However, moderate Labour MPs are growing increasingly concerned that hard-Left groups will attempt to remove them ahead of the next election.
In leaflets handed out to MPs and their aides last Monday, the Labour Party Marxists said: “Of course, what the PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] dreads, above all, is submitting to a genuine reselection process in the runup to the next general election.
“By the same measure, anything towards that end, no matter how partial, is to be welcomed, at least as far as the Labour Party Marxists is concerned. Most constituency members are itching to see the back of traitor MPs.”
The leaflet added: “There must be a strategic recognition that the Right will never reconcile itself to the Corbyn leadership. Let alone the growing influence of the radical, socialist and Marxist Left.
“And because the PLP Right will pursue its civil war to the bitter end, we must respond by using all the weapons at our disposal.”
In another leaflet titled the “Socialist Labour Bulletin”, activists said: “Should any MPs continue with their media sniping or parliamentary disloyalty then every party member has a duty to work to remove them and ensure deserving activists opposed to austerity and war are elected as Labour candidates and MPs in their place.”
It added: “Most of the PLP have yet to show they wish to support party policy and if they want our trust again they will have to earn it.”
The Marxist document went on to say: “The PLP rebels are out-and-out opportunists. Once and for all we must put an end to such types exploiting our party. Being an MP ought to be an honour, not a career ladder to secure a lucrative living.” One Labour MP said: “The fact is that this is what the Labour Party now looks like. Jeremy’s allies may claim there is no purge being planned, but his supporters outside the conference are saying something very different indeed.”
Mr Corbyn said the “vast majority” of Labour MPs have nothing to fear from deselection, but stopped short of ruling out the possibility that some may lose their seats.
The Labour leader – who was reelected with a strengthened mandate on Saturday – said that sitting MPs with a geographical claim on new constituencies after the impending boundary changes will “automatically” go on to shortlists, and that local parties will then use “democratic discussion” to choose a candidate. Asked whether he wanted sitting MPs to be reinstated, or if he would prefer a set of candidates with views closer to his own, Mr Corbyn said: “Listen, I wish them well. The relation- ship between an MP and their constituency is a complex one, not necessarily a policy tick-box exercise. It’s also the relationships, the community, the effectiveness of representation. Let’s have a democratic discussion and, I think, the vast majority of MPs will have no problem whatsoever.”
It came as the vice-chairman of Momentum claimed allegations of antiSemitism within the Labour party had been “weaponised” in an attempt to undermine Mr Corbyn and his backers.
Jackie Walker, who was suspended from Labour for claiming that Jews were the “chief financiers of the slave trade”, before later being readmitted, said there was “little if any” evidence that the party had an anti-Semitism problem.
Defiant moderates yesterday attended a packed rally of the Labour First movement, where they heard warnings that the party’s future existence is at risk, as well as pleas for centrists to stay and fight rather than quit or defect in protest at Mr Corbyn’s re-election.
Former shadow cabinet minister Vernon Coaker warned: “The political terms of trade in this country are changing. The Labour Party has to change. Our policies have to change. If we don’t change we will die.”
Labour MP Seema Malhotra, who quit as a shadow Treasury spokesman in June, said she had not made up her mind whether she could return to the front bench, but was “open to conversations” about her future role.
The Feltham and Heston MP said she was looking for action from Mr Corbyn
‘Jeremy’s allies may say there is no purge, but his supporters outside say something very different’
on introducing shadow cabinet elections, stamping out intimidation and abuse of centrist MPs and lifting the threat of deselection. However, Diane Abbott, one of Mr Corbyn’s closest allies, insisted the leader was not planning a purge of his critics.
Ms Abbott called on MPs to come together behind their leader and told Sky News’s Murnaghan: “This talk about deselection is coming from Jeremy’s enemies. It’s not coming from Jeremy at all. There will be selections because of the boundary changes. We are a democratic party; constituency parties choose their representative. There is no question about deselections. There’s not going to be a purge.”