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Labour should consider all-working class shortlists to help it re-connect with voters in the North, according to party chair Ian Lavery.

It would mean that only people from working class backgrounds could apply to become the party's candidate in selected constituencies.

Writing in left-wing magazine Tribune , he said: "Let’s be blunt. A new political class came to be dominant in our party to the extent that in 2017 only four Labour MPs came from a background of manual labour while 137 came from a professional political background.

"When any one sector so dominates the Parliamentary Labour Party, then there is a serious risk that we lose our national appeal to all of the groups which we need to win over."

Mr Lavery, the MP for Wansbeck in Northumberland, set out the proposal in a pamphlet written jointly with Yorkshire MP Jon Trickett, also a member of Labour's Shadow Cabinet.

(Image: Andy Commins / Daily Mirror)

Labour introduced all-women shortlists in 1993, when only around 10% of the party's MPs were women. Following last December's election, women make up just over 50% of Labour MPs.

The two senior Labour politicians argue that Labour set out in the 1990s to appeal to middle class voters, but working class voters often have different concerns. For example, while middle class voters may aspire to own their own property, many working class voters are more worried about the availability of good, affordable accommodation to rent.

They have produced a pamphlet called Northern Discomfort, designed to set out how the party can win back support in its heartlands.

They called on Labour to "remove all barriers to ensuring carers, cleaners, factory workers and people from the gig economy and other low-paid industries can have their voices heard in the party and can more easily stand for elected office."

This should include reviewing membership pricing structures and leading a mass recruitment drive in communities with ‘Northern’ characteristics, the MPs said.

And they said the party should "adopt protected shortlists for people from these backgrounds."

Other proposals included a firm commitment to ending austerity, backing full employment and creating a "council of the north" to give a strong voice to the region.

They also called for the creation of a "Marshall Plan" for the north. This is a reference to the US plan to rebuild Europe following the devastation of World War II.

The MPs proposed "an extensive ‘Marshall Plan’ which includes the North and other deprived areas of the UK to target spending on post-industrial and coalfield communities to support developing industries and encourage specialisation."

Mr Lavery has been a critic of Labour colleagues who urged the party to support a second Brexit referendum or "People's Vote" in the last election, and argues that failure to respect the result of the 2016 EU referendum helps explain why Labour lost.

But he also argued that the party was paying a price for decades of taking working class voters for granted.

Mr Lavery and Mr Trickett said that the "New Labour" government that was in power from 1997 to 2010 did improve the lives of people in former mining communities, including their constituents. But the MPs said: "They offered the party electoral victories in exchange for selling a part of its soul."

They said: "Over the last 30 years we have seen a disconnect between the values of our Northern heartlands and the Labour party.

"The Labour Party took the Northern working class for granted because they had been the core base of Labour support since the very foundation of the Party. There was this idea that they had nowhere to go, other than Labour.

"However, just as we took Scotland for granted before 2015, we continue to take the North for granted which puts us at risk of potentially disastrous results."

Labour's leadership contest is continuing and the winner will be announced on April 4.