According to John McDonnell, the reason three Labour frontbenchers resigned today is that there is a ‘group within the Labour party who have a right-wing conservative agenda. Within Progress itself, there are some who are quite hard right, and I think they’ve never accepted Jeremy’s leadership’. McDonnell told Channel 4 News that these ‘hard right’ MPs were still welcome in the Labour party because it is a ‘broad church’, but it was clear that he wants to paint Progress, largely a Blairite campaign group, as a menace.
Certainly Progress has a different approach to left-wing politics than McDonnell. And it’s not supportive of the current Labour leadership. But the Shadow Chancellor is citing the wrong Labour faction if he’s looking for a real threat to Jeremy Corbyn. The group he should worry about is Labour First, which represents the Old Right, not the Hard Right, and can name Tom Watson and Michael Dugher as some of its key figures.
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