Enfield North MP Joan Ryan has hit out at “Stalinists, Communists and the hard left” after losing a vote of confidence by local Labour members.

Members of Enfield North Constituency Labour Party (CLP) last night (September 6) voted by 94 votes to 92 in favour of a motion aimed at deselecting the MP amid a bitter row over anti-Semitism.

The original no-confidence motion had been ruled out of order by the chair of the CLP because it contained references to disciplinary matters.

But members were allowed to vote on an amended version of the motion that called for “the removal of the party whip and an open selection process for the next parliamentary candidate”.

The no-confidence vote expresses local members’ dissatisfaction with the MP but will not automatically lead to a deselection ballot.

Ms Ryan, who chairs Labour Friends of Israel, tweeted: “So lost 92 to 94 votes hardly decisive victory and it never occurred to me that Trots Stalinists Communists and assorted hard left would gave (sic) confidence in me. I have none in them.”

— Joan Ryan MP (@joanryanEnfield) 6 September 2018 ">http://

She later added: “I will be out tomorrow morning working hard for the people of Enfield.”

— Joan Ryan MP (@joanryanEnfield) 6 September 2018 ">http://

The result of the motion will be referred to Labour’s chief whip and the party’s governing body, the National Executive Committee, which decides the selection process for parliamentary candidates.

Ms Ryan, who has been an outspoken critic of alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party, was first elected MP for Enfield North in 1997.

The Conservatives took the seat in the 2010 general election, but Ms Ryan was re-elected in 2015 and increased her majority in 2017.

She has been a member of the Labour Party for 34 years but recently said she was ashamed at the leadership’s response to anti-Semitism allegations.

Ms Ryan urged Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn “to apologise for the pain and anguish he has caused the Jewish community for comments he has made and the company he has kept”.

Commenting on the no-confidence vote, Ms Ryan said: “I fought the hard left to a virtual draw. I did so in the face of a well organised, secret and long-planned divisive campaign led by party-within-a-party Momentum.”

She claimed the vote was about anti-Semitism and pledged to continue to speak out against it, while campaigning on issues such as housing, lack of opportunities for young people and violent crime and antisocial behaviour.

Ms Ryan added: “Labour needs to decide: it’s either an aspiring party of government, focused laser-like on the priorities of the British people – Brexit, an economy which works for everyone, and rebuilding our austerity-starved public services.

“Or it’s a party fighting with itself about ideological purity, arguing with the Jewish community about what constitutes anti-Semitism, and going down a rabbit warren of deselection, purges and harassment. It can’t be both.

“The Labour Party is tearing itself to pieces, and in the process it is tearing down the very people it needs the most.”