Keir Starmer warns Labour MPs anyone attacking Nato will be booted out

Message follows row over left-wingers signing Stop the War letter

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has warned his MPs that any of them who attempt to attack Nato or indulge in “false equivalence” with Russian aggression will be kicked out of the party.

Sir Keir said there would be “no room” in Labour for anyone who seeking to blame the western alliance for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

It follows a telling off for the 11 left-wing Labour MPs who were threatened with the loss of the party whip if they didn’t pull support for a Stop the War letter criticising Nato.

“Labour’s commitment to democracy, the rule of law and the sovereignty of independent nations is unshakable,” Sir Keir told a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).

He added: “Vladimir Putin is attacking all those things. Nato is defending them. There are groups in this country who haven’t seemed to understand that difference.”

Sir Keir warned MPs on the left: “Let me be very clear – There will be no place in this party for false equivalence between the actions of Russia and the actions of Nato.”

It comes after leading left-wingers – including key shadow cabinet members during the Jeremy Corbyn-era key, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott – were threatened with the removal of the whip if their names were not taken off the Stop the War letter.

The organisation had accused the UK government of “aggressive posturing”, and said that Nato “should call a halt to its eastward expansion”.

Other signatories included Richard Burgon, Ian Lavery, Beth Winter, Zarah Sultana, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Apsana Begum, Mick Whitley, Tahir Ali, and Ian Mearns.

Around an hour after it being reported, the shadow chief whip had written to the 11 MPs, and all their names had been withdrawn from the statement.

Mr Corbyn, the former Labour leader and former chairman of Stop the War who currently sits as an independent having lost the whip, also signed the letter.

A Labour spokesperson told The Independent: “The small number of Labour MPs that signed the Stop The War statement have all now withdrawn their names. This shows Labour is under new management.”

Sir Keir also scrapped the annual conference of the Young Labour group after activists attacked his backing for Nato during the Ukraine crisis.

The party’s youth wing is also to have its funding slashed – and access to its Twitter  account has been restricted for breaches of acceptable “standards of behaviour”.

Starmer also used his PLP meeting to warn that the war in Ukraine would “exacerbate” the cost of living crisis – apparently predicting a U-turn on the 1.25 per cent National Insurance rise planned for April

“The idea that Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson’s tax rise on working people can still go ahead in April now is just laughable,” he told MPs.