It’s all kicking off up in the Red Wall, with Bolton North East Constituency Labour Party suspended by the party on Friday after a “significant number of complaints“. This isn’t the first time a CLP has been debarred in the last few weeks…

The entire CLP leadership have been relieved of their duties and replaced with external officials until further notice. Labour’s NEC said they had a duty to “safeguard the integrity of CLPs, to ensure that they are properly run in line with the party’s rules“. Tensions first arose when Kirith Entwistle was chosen as Labour’s candidate over Cllr Akhtar Zaman and Cllr Rabiya Jiva, both cabinet members at Bolton Council. Nine of the 13 local party executive members resigned during the selection process back in February, protesting against what they saw as interference from London in promoting a candidate they didn’t want. Now the Starmtroopers have fought back…

Bolton North East is currently represented by Conservative MP Mark Logan, who couldn’t be happier with all this chaos. He told Guido he isn’t concerned about regaining his seat in the coming election following the CLP drama, despite it being one of the most marginal seats in the country. He said “there’s not a lot of cut through of Starmer to the people of Bolton… Starmer’s name is not mentioned much at the doors, and not frequently tossed about with much desire to see him in government”. With a majority of just 378, seeing his opponents declare civil war is the perfect gift…