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Labour grandee Roy Hattersley has launched a blistering attack on Jeremy Corbyn and the “tragedy” of his leadership - warning the party faces “disintegration”.

Lord Hattersley, who was deputy party leader for nine years, warned that voters do not trust Mr Corbyn.

The vitriolic broadside came as the Labour chief prepares to launch its London local election campaign alongside Mayor Sadiq Khan .

Lord Hattersley urged moderate MPs to speak out against Mr Corbyn’s premiership as the party continues its slide to the hard left.

“The people of sense and moderation and reason are very, very silent and that is a tragedy for the Labour Party as great as the Corbyn election was a tragedy for the Labour Party,” the peer told BBC’s Westminster Hour.

(Image: PA)

“The problem is the hovering suspicion that somehow the people behind Jeremy will take over the party and run it in a way which we find unacceptable - and unless he can overcome that suspicion then we’re in difficult trouble as far as winning an election is concerned.”

Together with then leader Neil Kinnock, Lord Hattersley fought and beat the hard left in the 1980s.

But he feared modern-day “entryism” outstripped the threat from three decades ago.

“I think the Labour Party is in a much more dangerous situation than it was in the 1980s,” he warned.

“In the 1980s there was entryism, there was the Militant Tendency, but they only operated in one or two small constituencies.

“They didn’t control the machine, they certainly didn’t control the leader, there were trade unions who were prepared to stand out against them and we always knew that the battle in the 1980s would eventually be won.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

“Now things are much more serious because people who are not ‘real Labour’ as I define it are increasingly in control of the machine, they’re increasingly taking over constituencies, they’re increasingly bullying moderate MPs.

“And if it goes on like this the Labour Party is in danger of disintegration.”

Claiming the deselection of senior, moderate backbenchers would unleash “mayhem”, he mocked young Labour supporters’ saying: “What the object of the Labour Party ought to be is gaining power, and that is different to turning up at a pop concert.”

Mr Corbyn needed to win over older, swing voters to gain a majority - and should be much further ahead in the polls, he added.

“If his job is to win the next election and to govern on a radical programme, he’s not doing as well as he should and that is because the voters in the country do not trust what I’ll call Corbynism, and Corbyn in particular,” said the peer.

Lord Hattersley retired from the House of Lords last year.