RUFFLED Blairites were running scared yesterday after a key Labour internal vote saw gains for the left.

The left-wing Grassroots Alliance won 55 per cent of party members’ votes in elections for the ruling national executive committee (NEC), after pledging to turn the tide on Con-Dem austerity. The alliance took four of the six seats up for grabs.

But former Blair adviser John McTernan took to Twitter in defence of the party’s commitment to keep to Tory spending plans.

“It’s a good thing that party policy isn’t set by the NEC then, isn’t it?” he wrote.

Since the 1990s most policy decisions have either been taken by the labyrinthine national policy forum or simply announced by frontbenchers.

But former NEC member Peter Kenyon told the Morning Star that Wednesday’s result was still significant.

“The main point is that the people elected are clearly committed to oppose austerity,” he said.

“The leadership is being dishonest with the electorate because they won’t be able to keep to Tory spending, just as the Tories can’t — the latest borrowing figures prove it.

“Labour hasn’t actually debated economic policy for over 20 years. Ed Balls made a very bad mistake in using party management techniques to shut down the debate.”

Mr Kenyon said NEC policy discussions had been “few and far between” but insisted the committee had exerted influence over party direction at crucial moments.

Meanwhile re-elected centrist executive member Johanna Baxter attempted to distance herself from the right-wing Progress and Labour First organisations that endorsed her.

“This endorsement was not sought by me and I was not on any ‘slate’,” she wrote in a comment on the Left Futures website.