McDonnell calls on activists to target Labour’s own MPs

SHADOW Chancellor John McDonnell was denounced by Labour MPs last night after he appeared to encourage activists from the Left to gang up on them as well as Tories.

Mr McDonnell said he wanted the activists to make sure that wherever the MPs went, ‘it’s f****** kicking off’.

In a video of a speech made by Mr McDonnell, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, he encouraged Left-wing supporters to step up militant protests against Government policies.

Calling on the hard-Left to join forces in demonstrations, he appeared to suggest they should also target Labour MPs.

Mr McDonnell, one of Jeremy Corbyn’s closest allies who is bitterly opposed by many moderate Labour MPs, said it was difficult ‘to co-ordinate all this kicking off.’

Describing the prospect of such action as ‘exhilarating’, he said: ‘I want to be in a situation where Tory MPs or Labour MPs, wherever they go, it’s f****** kicking off.

‘They turn up, there’s someone protesting, there’s someone written a slogan on a wall, there’s someone occupying. I want it happening all the time.’

Mr McDonnell’s provocative remarks were made in 2012, when he was a backbench MP, at a meeting organised by the Right To Work group, seen by Labour moderates as a front for the hard-Left Socialist Workers Party (SWP). The group had been campaigning against Government austerity moves, including proposals for unemployed youngsters to join work experience schemes.

Last night, Blairite Labour MP John Woodcock said: ‘It is disturbing to see Mr McDonnell seemingly inciting hard-line protests against his own Labour colleagues.

‘He needs to apologise and explain himself.’

Mr McDonnell’s spokesman said: ‘John was simply calling for democratic protest against Tory proposals to make unemployed young people work without pay and for those demonstrations to be viewable by all MPs.’