SIR Keir Starmer was accused of “McCarthyism” today after a socialist member of Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) was blocked from seeking to become the party’s parliamentary candidate in Wolverhampton West.

Mish Rahman, a vice-chairman of Momentum and leading Muslim voice for the party who had won the backing of seven trade unions, decried the “anti-democratic” figures running Labour.

The contentious decision came a day after North Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll, a fellow leftwinger, resigned from the party and announced that he would seek to become mayor of the new North East Mayoral Combined Authority as an independent after he too was blocked from standing for Labour.