However, any move to depose Corbyn will be vehemently opposed by the party members, 66 percent of whom believe he is doing “well” in his role, according to a recent poll.
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But not everyone is pleased with the campaign. The man in question is the Labour Party’s shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, whose summing-up speech in favour of bombing in Syria has just been received with an unprecedented round of cheers and applause in the chamber. “And the party as a whole will not accept such behaviour, from whatever quarter it comes”. A firm line needs to be taken, a code of conduct around social media.
The reports are likely to heighten concerns among Labour moderates who have complained of orchestrated online bullying and abuse from Corbyn supporters with threats of de-selection.
Critics have warned it risks becoming a “party within the party” and that some of its supporters are not members of Labour and do not share its values.
But Labour MP Tristram Hunt called for the party leadership to disown Momentum.
She said the abuse reflected “old-fashioned thuggery”.
Spokesperson for the bookmaker, Graham Sharpe, stated: “The intriguing possibility of the two Hil(l)arys leading their countries at the same time has suddenly become more likely as Hilary Benn takes over as favourite to succeed Jeremy Corbyn, while Hillary Clinton is already odds-on favourite to win next year’s US Presidential Election”.
“If there’s evidence that people are abusive of colleagues in the Labour Party there should be no tolerance of that in my view”.
Describing so-called Islamic State militants as “fascists”, Hilary Benn said “what we know about fascists is that they need to be defeated”.
“If you have that at the top of the party, what you have is permission to target MPs, permission has been given to target us”, she said.
“It’s about time Labour MPs showed respect, not only to the elected leader but to the members of the Labour Party and also to the people around them”.
Deselection was openly being discussed by visitors to the Facebook pages of grassroots Momentum groups – including for areas that cover pro-airstrike MPs Harriet Harman and Neil Coyle in Southwark, Chuka Umunna in Lambeth, and Heidi Alexander and Jim Dowd in Lewisham.
“That is a matter for local Labour parties to determine who is going to be the Labour candidate in the 2020 election or in local elections or the other elections next May”.
The issue of war and terrorism has laid bare the divisions, with Corbyn being forced to allow his MPs a free vote on air strikes as all-out conflict threatened to break out in the party.
Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), said there was a clear mood among the party’s grassroots members who swept Mr Corbyn to the leadership that they wanted MPs who supported his policies.
“MPs who refuse to carry out the wishes of the people they claim to represent and instead pass on, vote on and support Tory austerity and war can expect anger from constituents”.
On Sunday night an enthralling session at Edinburgh Castle by a company called Theatre of War highlighted the huge pressure this kind of warfare places on the tiny minority who go into action on our behalf, and on their families; and we should never forget that they often pay, through their own pain and trauma, for our society’s profound confusion about whether it really wants to fight for its values, or just to watch others fighting from the comfort of the sofa. “We are calling for votes of no-confidence to be taken as well as lobbies of MP surgeries and constituency offices”. That was what killed us in Scotland as much as anything.
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Watson spoke out against Momentum during an interview on the Today programme in which he hailed Labour’s decisive victory in the Oldham West and Royton byelection which the party won with a 10,722 majority.
