Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of attempting a “grubby stitch-up” of the next Labour leadership election over his plans to reform the voting system to make it harder for a Left-wing candidate to win.
John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor and a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, said the plan to abandon the “one member, one vote” system introduced under Ed Miliband was a “huge mistake”.
Sir Keir is facing a frontbench rebellion against the plans, after a close ally of his deputy, Angela Rayner, called them “regressive”.
The Labour leader will meet trade unions on Wednesday to discuss whether they will support him at this year’s party conference, which begins on Saturday.
Unite, Labour’s largest financial backer, is expected to vote against him.
Mr McDonnell told the BBC’s Today programme on Wednesday: “Our constituents are facing a Universal Credit cut in a few weeks’ time…many of them a public-sector pay freeze, energy prices going up, inflation going up and in the real world that’s what we should be addressing.
“Then to go into a Labour conference…and this is the first conference coming together physically as a result of Covid…to then concentrate on internal, factional disputes, it’s just not what people expected from Keir.
“Look at the contrast in the media. You have Boris Johnson strutting the world stage, doing deals with [Joe] Biden and other world leaders. What do we have? The Labour leader in grubby stitch-up deals. It’s unacceptable.”
