by Our News Desk

JOHN McDONNELL yesterday brushed off threats by a Labour MP to oust party leader Jeremy Corbyn if the party doesn’t perform well in next May’s elections.

The shadow chancellor dismissed the comments made by the anti-Corbyn Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk as “Simon being Simon.”

In the latest of a series of highly critical articles about Mr Corbyn in the Mail on Sunday, Mr Danczuk said that the Labour leader was guilty of “a profound lack of judgement and naivety.

“He is unsuited to leading a major political party and the sooner we get a Labour leader who is, the better.”

Mr Danczuk said he would seek to force a contest if the party performed poorly at devolved and local elections in May.

However, Mr McDonnell told the Andrew Marr Show: “That is Simon being Simon isn’t it? There will be people who have to come to terms with the change and they will do it slowly, but they will.”

Under Labour rules, potential challengers to a sitting leader must secure the support of 20 per cent of MPs — at present 46 of 231 — to force a contest.

Mr Danczuk’s posturing follows panic among right-wing MPs that new campaign group Momentum will try to “purge” them.

Mr McDonnell told the meeting there is “no way” left-wing activists would be allowed to force MPs out by deselecting them in favour of more radical candidates.

However, former Labour London mayor Ken Livingstone believes the party should.

“We should see a party more in Mr Corbyn’s image,” he told Sunday Politics.

“The parliamentary party is significantly to the right both of the rank-and-file and the leadership.

“If you have a thousand new members joining your party because they supported Jeremy Corbyn’s policies and you have an MP completely undermining him … they should have the right to challenge that.

“I was challenged by my local party because they thought I was too left wing. They had the right to do that.

“It should not be a job for life.”

He said it was “inevitable” that MPs would have to shift to the left.