DISSENT against the Labour leadership’s “McCarthyism” is growing, campaigners said today after allegations of yet another witch-hunt targeting a leftwinger provoked a furious response.

In a damning intervention, the party’s MP for Dagenham and Rainham Jon Cruddas branded threats to expel Neal Lawson, a former speech writer for Gordon Brown, as a “disgraceful move by a right-wing, illiberal faction.”

According to the Observer newspaper, Mr Lawson, a party member for 44 years and head of centre-left pressure group Compass, received an email from the party last week claiming that he expressed support for Green Party candidates in the 2021 local elections.

He reportedly has 14 days to respond, after which his case will be considered by a Labour panel that has the power to expel him from the party. 

Thousands of leftwingers are thought to have had their social media activity used against them in this way since Sir Keir Starmer replaced veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn as leader in April 2020.

Mr Lawson, whose treatment is said have outraged two members of Sir Keir’s front-bench team, told the Observer: “I’ve fought all my life to make Labour a vehicle capable of transforming our country.

“If people like me and the pluralist tradition I represent have no place in Labour, then the future of the party and country feels very bleak.”

Mr Cruddas blasted the “unprecendented” action against Mr Lawson, saying that it had been spearheaded by a “right-wing, illiberal faction which has been handed control to decide who is and is not a member.”

He told the same newspaper: “They are settling scores and are clearly embarked on a witch-hunt, not just of the Corbynite left but of mainstream democrats within the party such as Neal.

“This would never have happened under New Labour. Labour is now kicking out people like Neal for upholding the democratic, pluralist traditions that created the party. It is a disgrace.”

Mr Cruddas insisted that the approach runs counter to Sir Keir’s leadership campaign pledges and is also “stupid, counterproductive and reveals a lack of self-confidence.”

A spokesperson for grassroots group Momentum said: “Across the party, dissent is rising at the Labour leadership’s McCarthyism.

“We need fair disciplinary decisions and democratic decision-making by members, not stitch-ups and purges directed from Westminster.”

A Labour spokesman claimed that it is “longstanding policy that membership is not compatible with support for or voting for another political party.”