Len McCluskey warns Labour's Corbyn critics they can expect to be 'held to account' as he accuses them of anti-Semitism 'smear'

Jeremy Corbyn’s closest union ally has warned five “Corbyn hater” Labour MPs that they will be “held to account” after he accused them of whipping up a row over anti-Semitism just to “smear” the Labour leader.

The intervention from Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, threatens to turn the growing anti-Semitism row within Labour into a civil war just a week before the local elections.

Mr McCluskey said Wes Streeting, John Woodcock, Neil Coyle, Chris Leslie and Ian Austin had used anti-Semitism to “toxify” the party. He was accused of deliberately making them targets for abuse at a time when their colleagues have been subjected to death and rape threats for speaking out on the issue.

Labour is currently investigating 90 cases of alleged anti-Semitism by its members, and has suspended 20 members in the last fortnight alone.

Mr Corbyn has repeatedly said he is committed to tackling anti-Semitism but Mr McCluskey’s comments will seriously undermine the Labour leader’s attempt to change the narrative.

Mr Streeting issued a defiant response, saying that “no abuse, intimidation or threats of deselection will prevent me from voicing the concerns of Jewish constituents about anti-Semitism in the the Labour Party”.

Writing in the New Statesman, Mr McCluskey made the comments on the day that the Jewish MP Ruth Smeeth was given a human shield of 40 Labour colleagues to protect her from far-left activists as she attended a disciplinary hearing over an incident in which she was the alleged victim of anti-Semitic abuse.

Last week Labour MPs were given repeated standing ovations in the Commons when they stood up to the bullies within their party by describing death threats and rape threats they had received for daring to criticise anti-Semites in the party.

Earlier this week Mr Corbyn's attempts to address the issue were dismissed by Jewish leaders who said he had failed to take “concrete” action to address the issue.

And The Daily Telegraph can disclose that a senior member of the shadow cabinet has called on Mr Corbyn to expel former London mayor Ken Livingstone from the party as he faces a second investigation into comments in which he linked the Nazis to Zionism.

Mr Livingstone’s two-year suspension from the party ends on Friday, but he will immediately be subject to a second suspension pending the outcome of the inquiry into fresh complaints made about him of “deliberate and offensive behaviour towards the Jewish community”.

Mr McCluskey - who has insisted in the past that Mr Livingstone is not an anti-Semite - enraged Jewish Labour MPs with his comments.

As well as taking aim at the five Labour MPs he also accused Avi Gabbay, the leader of the Israeli Labour Party, of committing a “disgusting libel” on Mr Corbyn when he severed relations with Labour because of the leader’s alleged hostility towards the Jewish community.

He said that “Gabbay is guilty of a cynical and outrageous smear” of which “he should be ashamed”.

Unite has given £11 million to Labour since Mr Corbyn became leader, making it the party’s biggest financial backer. Andrew Murray, Mr McCluskey’s chief of staff, works as a part-time consultant to Mr Corbyn.

Turning to the Labour MPs, Mr McCluskey wrote: “You would have to go back a long way to find such a sustained smearing by MPs of their own leader and their own party as we are seeing now. MPs such as Chris Leslie, Neil Coyle (my own MP), John Woodcock, Wes Streeting, Ian Austin, and others, have become a dismal chorus whose every dirge makes winning a Labour government more difficult...

“I look with disgust at the behaviour of the Corbyn-hater MPs who join forces with the most reactionary elements of the media establishment and I understand why there is a growing demand for mandatory reselection…

“Promiscuous critics must expect to be criticised, and those who wish to hold Corbyn to account can expect to be held to account themselves.”

Asked if Mr McCluskey had made him and his colleagues targets for fresh abuse, Mr Woodcock told The Daily Telegraph: “I’m sure it is very deliberately his intention, and it will underline people’s conclusions about how he operates.

“Nothing is going to stop us from trying to rid the Labour Party of the abhorrence of anti-Semitism.”

Mr Coyle accused Mr McCluskey of undermining Labour efforts to tackle anti-Semitism by claiming it “doesn’t exist”, while Mr Austin said: “He should be complaining about the people responsible for anti-Semitism, not the people who are calling it out.”

Mr Austin was one of the MPs who spoke out in a debate on anti-Semitism in the Commons last week, during which Labour MPs accused Mr Corbyn of a “betrayal” of Jews and told him: “Enough is enough.”

Ruth Smeeth, a Jewish Labour MP who was moved to tears during that debate, gave evidence to a disciplinary hearing against Marc Wadsworth, a Corbyn supporter and Momentum activist, whom she accuses of making anti-Semitic comments about her in 2016.

As she arrived for the hearing at a conference centre in central London, she was heckled by demonstrators from Labour Against The Witch-Hunt, who accused her of being part of a “conspiracy”.