Keir Starmer’s team swooped on the party’s left last night. Three candidates from that faction have reportedly been banned from standing: Diane Abbott, Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Faiza Shaheen. Meanwhile loyalists such as Labour Together think tanker Josh Simons and Rachel Reeves’s former senior aide Heather Iqbal have been handed plumb seats. Luke Akehurst, a much-reviled National Executive Committee (NEC) member on the party’s right has been selected in North Durham. The left has been squashed; the right elevated. Yet again.
The leadership can do this because the NEC, on which Starmer’s supporters have a majority, has the power to impose candidates during the short campaign. If you are surprised at his ruthlessness then you haven’t been watching. His project is defined by its comprehensive wresting of control of the party from the Corbynites in order to impose the message discipline his strategists think is necessary to win the election. He wears the changes to the party as evidence of his ability to change the country.
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