John Paul McHugh has denounced Paul Mason, a Channel 4 journalist, for calling for Labour MP Anna Turley to be deselected.
“If Paul Mason or anyone else comes for the deselection of Anna Turley, I’ll be standing beside her”, the Community boss said yesterday.
The moderate group lost its place on Labour’s NEC executive board in last year in an early victory for Jeremy Corbyn, along with MP Hillary Benn, who stood alongside McHugh as he spoke to Labour members yesterday.
This comes as other anti-Corbyn Labour activists rally to protect the party’s centrist MPs from the prospect of losing their seats.
On Sunday Jeremy Corbyn told Andrew Marr that only the “vast majority” of MPs had nothing to fear when constituency boundaries are redrawn.
Since then Usdaw chief John Hannett has said he will fight any deselections, and Labour First has said it will be setting up “as many groups as possible” to protect the party’s centrist members.
At a Labour First rally on Sunday MPs from the right of the party hissed at the mention of Paul Mason, and called on their colleagues to battle deselection.
Former shadow cabinet minister Michael Dugher said: “This is our party and we stay and we fight. Don’t let anyone on the hard left of our movement drive you out of what is our party.”