Sir Keir’s plot to proscribe four “toxic” hard-left Labour campaign groups at tomorrow’s NEC meeting has naturally been met with fury by people who for reasons unknown are desperate to remain in the party. The 4 groups – including the communist organisation Socialist Appeal – are now planning to retaliate with “a joint defence campaign” that will protest the meeting and stop Starmer trying to “get rid of the left”. All well and good… except the NEC meeting is being held virtually.

The 4 campaign groups, led by Labour Against the Witch Hunt (known for insisting Labour’s antisemitism crisis was overstated), were sent into hysterics it emerged that Starmer intended to auto-expel over 1000 Corbynistas for belonging to any one of them in an effort to “clean out the stable“. Labour Against the Witch Hunt, who used an email to supporters this weekend to boast of their sponsors – including Ken Livingstone, Ken Loach and Noam Chomsky – will also hold an emergency meeting on Saturday via Zoom. Perhaps Progress could propose a protest of that virtual meeting…