Labour hard-Left has completed takeover of the party’s ruling body as Corbyn is now urged to trigger a clean-out of moderate MPs
Jon Lansman, the founder of Momentum, today threatened to take Labour back to the socialist 1970s
JEREMY CORBYN was urged to trigger a clean-out of moderate Labour MPs last night as the hard-left completed its takeover of the party’s ruling body.
Jon Lansman – the arch leftie founder of the Momentum campaign group – beat off comic Eddie Izzard for a slot on Labour’s National Executive Committee.
The remaining two of three slots went to fellow Momentum backers in a complete sweep for the so-called Corbyn “standing army”.
Paul Mason, the former BBC broadcaster turned Corbynista, said: “Left wins clean sweep in Labour NEC membership elections.
“Now let’s have mandatory selections of all MP candidates in every Parliament.” As recently as December, Jon Lansman, a fixer for Tony Benn in the 1980s, was pushing for the re-selection of Labour candidates for the upcoming council election.
‘Moderate’ backbenchers who have opposed Jeremy Corbyn since he won the leadership in 2015 called for calm.
Speaking yesterday Emma Reynolds said mandatory reselections of MPs ahead of the next General Election would only cause further “division and bitterness”.
She said: “We have always been a broad church and the bitterness that we have seen over the last couple of years and some of the rows we have had, we need to put that behind us.”
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Eddie Izzard came fourth in yesterday’s voting – with 39,508 votes. Momentum’s three favoured candidates - Jon Lansma, Rachel Garnham and Yasmine Dar – won 65,163, 62,982 and 68,388 votes respectively.
Tory deputy chair James Cleverly said: “Today’s election of Jon Lansman and his comrades to Labour’s ruling body confirms that the hard left has well and truly consolidated its grip over the Labour Party.
“With a former adviser to John McDonnell now demanding mandatory reselections of all Labour candidates, it is more important than ever that Jeremy Corbyn condemns the abuse and intimidation in his Party.”