A LABOUR MP has accused Keir Starmer of creating a “culture of fear” in which the Labour Party’s left-wing MPs are worried of being ousted ahead of next year’s general election.
It comes after Labour’s top brass were accused of looking into suspending prominent party member Neal Lawson – the chief executive of the Compass think-tank – because he retweeted a Lib Dem MP’s call for some voters to back Green Party candidates in local elections in 2021.
A former shadow secretary of state told i: “MPs are now going through their social media deleting everything that could be seen as even slightly contentious. It’s sinister.
"Everything I do now on social media, I self censure. I think: ‘Is that going to get me kicked out? Is that going to get me investigated?’”
The MP also spoke to the culture within the party, saying it is now run by a group of “pound shop Blairites” who are “drunk on power”.
They said: “This started off with Starmer giving certain people control of the party and saying: ‘Clean up Labour. I want the antisemites out, I want the cranks out.
“But now they’ve got a taste for this, and it’s gone too far. It’s a small clique of kind of pound shop Blairites who think that they can go around and basically score-settle and victimise, and they are drunk on power.”
“This isn’t a good political culture. It shuts people down. And that makes bad policy and bad decisions, because no-one will speak with fear of what will happen. I think everyone in the party’s living in fear.
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Mr Lawson hasn’t been expelled. He was served with a notice of allegation seven days ago, putting claims to him that he expressed support for candidates from other parties. He has 14 days to respond. He is yet to do so.”
