Hard-Left threat to Labour MP
A LABOUR MP is facing the threat of deselection from hard-Left activists unless she apologises for previously criticising Jeremy Corbyn.
Moderate Luciana Berger was forced to back the leader after his supporters took over her local branch of the party in Liverpool.
In a menacing threat, one newly elected member of the constituency committee said she was ‘answerable to us’ and ordered her to ‘get on board quite quickly now’.
Mr Corbyn’s backers have said other MPs who disagree
with him may be deselected – dropped as candidates for future elections.
Fears of a plot to purge moderates grew last night after a list of 49 Labour MPs to target, including Miss Berger, was posted on a Facebook page for a branch of pro-Corbyn grassroots group Momentum.
The post said the ‘usual suspects’ and ‘so-called Labour MPs’ should ‘join the Liberals if they don’t want us to hold onto millions of working class votes’.
Moderate Labour MPs were overlooked in a recent reshuffle of Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet.
Many of the new members of the executive committee in Miss Berger’s Liverpool Wavertree constituency are thought to be Momentum supporters. They are mobilising to take over other branches and have put other
‘Apologise for not supporting him’
Labour MPs on notice for failing to toe the leadership’s line.
Similar plots are believed to be afoot in Bristol West, where MP Thangam Debbonaire could face deselection.
Last year, Labour MP Angela Eagle, who stood against Mr Corbyn for the party’s leadership, faced a call for deselection by local members in her constituency in Wallasey, Merseyside.
Mother of one Miss Berger, 36, currently on maternity leave, is the first victim of the most recent purge attempt, which was threatened by Labour’s new chairman Ian Lavery.
The MP – once seen as a rising star of the Labour party – quickly issued a statement after the takeover of her constituency branch saying that she wants a Labour government under Mr Corbyn.
Miss Berger, who has suffered antiSemitic abuse, previously quit the shadow front bench in protest at his stance, saying the party needed a leader who would unite it. Mr Lavery, a close ally of Mr Corbyn, warned last week that Labour was ‘too broad a church’ and that current MPs must ‘work very hard’ to avoid deselection.
He argued that ‘everything has got to be on the table’ in terms of party reform. His comments were echoed yesterday by Chris Williamson, new shadow fire minister and a strong supporter of Mr Corbyn.
He appeared to back wider use of deselection, saying no MP should be ‘guaranteed a job for life’ and that Labour’s newer members ‘must be listened to’.
Nine out of ten seats on the executive committee of Miss Berger’s Constituency Labour Party were taken by Mr Corbyn’s supporters this week.
One of the newly elected officials, Roy Bentham, immediately issued a call for Miss Berger to ‘get on board quite quickly now’ and publicly apologise for criticising the Labour leader.
He said: ‘She will have to be answerable to us. We would like her to come out publicly like other MPs have done and apologise for not supporting him in the past.’
Yesterday, the Liverpool Wavertree branch said Mr Bentham did not speak on its behalf. Miss Berger and Mr Bentham declined to comment.
Miss Berger has been considered too moderate by those within the hard-Left, and has faced criticism her background is too middle-class.
She was educated at Haberdashers’ Aske’s, a private school in Elstree, Hertfordshire, and her great-uncle Manny Shinwell, a former Labour minister, was in the House of Lords.
She studied commerce and Spanish at Birmingham University and worked as a management consultant before she was elected in 2010.
Miss Berger has revealed she has received 2,500 hate-filled messages in three days from internet trolls. They included threats to rape or kill her, while some featured the yellow star used by the Nazis to identify Jews.