The shadow health secretary, Diane Abbott, a staunch Jeremy Corbyn supporter, has dismissed suggestions that the Labour party is being infiltrated by hard-left activists, saying the claims are being peddled by “people within the Westminster bubble”.
Abbott said the Labour deputy leader Tom Watson’s claims that the party was vulnerable to a takeover by Trotskyist entryists were a “distraction”.
Her comments come ahead of a court of appeal ruling on whether tens of thousands of new members of Labour will have the right to vote in the forthcoming leadership election between Corbyn and Owen Smith.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether Trotskyists or members of other parties, including the Socialist party, the successor to Militant, should be allowed to return to the party, Abbott said: “Of course not. We have rules against it. This ‘reds under the beds’ narrative is a complete distraction.”
Abbott said that in the 1980s when the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock banned groups such as Militant from being members of the party, she had cautioned against “witch-hunts against ordinary people on the left”.
She denied that campaigns by Corbyn at the time suggested the incumbent leader would welcome them back now.
“The problem is Westminster elites refuse to accept the fact that quite ordinary people, young people that left the party over Blair, are coming back to Labour in their tens of thousands because they actually believe in what Jeremy is saying,” she said.
Abbott was asked about warnings from Dave Prentis, the general secretary of Unison, that Labour was in danger of becoming the new nasty party.
She replied: “It’s odd Dave Prentis has said that because actually what’s happened is Unison have consulted their members and they’ve decided to support Jeremy, so it’s odd that he says something negative.
“When you go out into the country, ordinary party members will tell you Jeremy has made them believe in politics again. People should address that and see why people think that. Not rehashing stories from the 70s about Bolsheviks with snow on their boots.”
Later on Friday, court of appeal judges will rule on whether to overturn a high court ruling on Monday in favour of five members who say they were unlawfully frozen out of the contest between Corbyn and Smith.
Iain McNicol, the party’s general secretary, is leading the appeal against Mr Justice Hickinbottom’s decision that swept away a ban on recruits who joined after 12 January getting the vote. If the appeal is rejected, Corbyn could receive a significant boost in his fight to remain party leader, as most new members are expected to support him.
Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) decided on 12 July – referred to as the “freeze date” – that full members would not be able to vote if they had not had continuous party membership for at least six months.
But the high court declared that refusing them the vote would be an unlawful breach of the party’s contract with members as set out in its rulebook.
Lawyers for the five – Christine Evangelou, the Rev Edward Leir, Hannah Fordham, Chris Granger and “FM”, a teenage member – argued that the NEC had no power under the rules to retrospectively freeze a full member’s ability to vote in leadership elections.
They say approximately 150,000 individuals joined the party between 12 January and 12 July and their ability to vote is at stake.
After a day-long hearing, Lord Justice Beatson, sitting with Lady Justice Macur and Lord Justice Sales, said the court appreciated the urgency of the case and aimed to give its ruling at 3pm on Friday.
There has been speculation that McNicol could face being ousted if the party loses its appeal as divisions within the party deepen still further.
A senior Labour source said: “If Labour loses the appeal, the position of Iain McNicol becomes untenable.”
But Abbott told the Today programme: “I don’t think he’s going to walk away.”
