‘What Sir Keir Starmer is hoping to achieve?’

• ACCORDING to Martin Plaut the reselection process was scrupulously fair (Labour selection was fair, December 30) and he has stressed that the procedures were very thorough and watertight.

However I remain unconvinced that it was anything other than a well-rehearsed, face-fitting, exercise designed to filter out independent thinkers.

Over the past two years I have watched the Labour Party regress, at an alarming pace, from a member-led democracy to a hostile dictatorship.

Lifelong members live in fear of suspension if they question the new leader’s poor judgment or if they support the down-trodden. Even conference decisions are ignored if they clash with the views of the leader’s backers.

Unlike Mr Plaut I took no part in the reselection processes, but I am aware of its outcomes and the whole approach follows a pattern I have witnessed over and over again in the corporate world.

A hostile takeover results in a new culture and the new management will deploy carefully crafted procedures, with loaded questions, to grill and engineer out anybody who is not prepared to accept the new regime or who has been caught in the net of a smear campaign. I’m sure the process was quite scrupulous in following the rules.

Once you’re in control you can ride roughshod over those you have ousted if that is your desire. It’s clear that is exactly what some people wished for.

Lord Mandelson, for example, now back in favour, has boasted how he worked every day to undermine the previous leadership and he has probably been plotting something like this for the past six years.

So I am not questioning whether the process was followed diligently, but I really do wonder what Sir Keir Starmer is hoping to achieve. There is already a nasty party and it is very well established. So why the need for two of them?

My only conclusion is that he is on a mission to demoralise all supporters of socialism and destroy the party from within.

IAN SHACKLOCK, N4