LABOUR’S perverse decision to expel black anti-racism campaigner Marc Wadsworth is a watershed moment.

Recent months have seen a resurgence of Establishment attacks on Labour and its leader, resuming a pattern of misinformation and smears that began when Jeremy Corbyn was elected to lead the party in 2015.

Corbyn has been attacked for lacking patriotism because he refused to believe everything the Conservatives claimed about the apparent poisoning of Sergei Skripal without seeing some evidence to back it up.

He was then accused of siding with repressive regimes for suggesting inspectors should be allowed to investigate what happened in the Syrian town of Douma and Parliament allowed to discuss the matter before Theresa May launched a pointless and illegal bombing raid over the country on orders from US President Donald Trump.

And his enemies have again whipped up a storm over the Labour leadership’s supposed refusal to clamp down on anti-semitic prejudices in the party.

This whole line of attack has been pursued with breathtaking hypocrisy and dishonesty. Every statement by the leadership or its supporters is wilfully misconstrued — as when Unite leader Len McCluskey was accused this week of denying anti-semitism existed in the party when his New Statesman article specifically said that it did and needed tackling.

What McCluskey attacked was the way some of Corbyn’s enemies have sought to manipulate a very serious issue in order to discredit their leader and damage their party and movement.

A shrill trial by multibillionaire-owned media has replaced natural justice, negated individuals’ right to a fair hearing and drowned out critical voices.

Accused individuals are held in limbo for months. Any suggestion that an investigation might exonerate them is shouted down. Guilt is presumed.

Jewish Board of Deputies president Jonathan Arkush, whose anti-racist principles are so dearly held that he congratulated Trump on his election to the US presidency despite his close links to white supremacists and anti-semites, is not alone in demanding that Wadsworth be followed by more ritual expulsions, namely those of Jackie Walker and Ken Livingstone.

Several MPs and London Mayor Sadiq Khan have also made it clear that they will not regard anything but guilty verdicts as acceptable in cases that have yet to be resolved.

But Wadsworth’s expulsion is, as Jewish Voice for Labour states, a new low. Full video footage exists of the incident which has now led to his exclusion from the party, and it is an insult to our intelligence to suggest either that he said anything anti-semitic or that his accusers really believe he did.

Pointing to a Labour MP’s co-operation with the Daily Telegraph should not be an offence. Indeed, too many Labour MPs have cosy relationships with right-wing papers that trash their party on a daily basis, and their voters and local party members have a right to know about these discreditable associations.

The national constitutional committee’s verdict is that Wadsworth “brought Labour into disrepute.” This itself is troubling, since the charge is so vague that it could provide carte blanche for the expulsion of many other innocent activists.

It’s even more troubling that the verdict demonstrates that no evidence of wrongdoing is required for an expulsion: repeating the accusation at a deafening volume and intimidating the panel by rallying an all-white posse of MPs to march on the hearing are enough.

And it’s worse still that what Labour stamped on today was the right of ordinary members to question or criticise MPs. Too often since Corbyn was elected any attempt by members to hold MPs to account has been derided as intolerable bullying. It is not — it is an essential democratic requirement.

Those responsible for Wadsworth’s expulsion should hang their heads in shame. The rest of us must stand with him and support his battle for justice. The outlook for Labour will be bleak otherwise.