LABOUR “should not allow a few dissident voices” to distract the party from the essential task of taking down the Tory government, Jeremy Corbyn’s parliamentary aide told construction workers yesterday.

Mr Corbyn appointed Liverpool Walton MP and bricklayer Steve Rotheram as his parliamentary private secretary in spite of Mr Rotheram’s support for his “best mate” Andy Burnham.

Giving a rare speech at the conference of builders’ union Ucatt, Mr Rotheram warmly praised the party leader for his
magnanimity in reaching out to the supporters of other candidates for the Labour leadership.

He said most Labour MPs acknowledged that Mr Corbyn’s overwhelming victory was a sign that supporters wanted “a complete change in the way the party is managed.”

But he warned: “There are people who I wonder, when they get out of bed in the morning, whether they’re in the right movement, the right party.”

Mr Rotheram was forced to leave Labour’s national executive after Blairites exploited an ambiguity in the rules over whether private secretaries were allowed to represent MPs.

He used his speech yesterday to call for greater collaboration between Labour and the trade unions.

He said the Tories had had to water down the Trade Union Act “because of the outright concerted campaign of the Parliamentary Labour Party and the unions working hand-in-hand” at every stage of the legislation’s passage through Parliament.

“We need more brickies in Parliament,” he added.

And he attacked the Tories for claiming to be on the side of working people.

“They’re not the party of the makers, they’re the party of the fakers,” he stormed.