LABOUR has ordered a top-level probe into Lancashire South Euro MP Michael Hindley's plan to join an extreme left-wing platform just weeks before the general election.

Party general secretary Tom Sawyer will head the investigation amid rumours that Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party might be preparing to challenge senior Labour MPs in the area.

Some Labour figures fear Mr Hindley, long out of step with Tony Blair's new Labour, may be paving the way to back such candidates.

The SLP is rumoured to be planning challenges to Rossendale and Darwen Janet Anderson and Hyndburn's Greg Pope, in whose constituency the meeting organised by Lancashire Socialist News will take place.

But Mr Hindley angrily refuted the claims and said he would be doing everything he could to encourage people to vote for Labour in the election.

The Euro MP for Lancashire South will join John Nicholson, convenor of the Greater Manchester Socialist Alliance, and Alex McFadden, a member of the TUC's joins consultative committee and a Liverpool docker, at the meeting in Accrington on Thursday. The event at the Canine WMC in Abbey Street is titled "Not The General Election - A Celebration Of Socialism."

A press statement says the meeting will offer "The Socialist message which will not be on offer from any party in the General Election."

It adds: "The General Election will be a contest between Tony Blair's New Labour and John Major's Tory Party.

"Now that Labour supports the status quo, many people who want Socialists changed will not get the chance to vote for it."

A Labour Party spokesman said: "We have seen the leaflet, it is a matter of concern. The general secretary will be looking into it."

Labour whip Mr Pope said: "I regret that Mr Hindley will be addressing such a meeting so close to the General Election."

Shadow Women's Minister Mrs Anderson said: "I am surprised and disappointed that Mike Hindley should even consider speaking on the same platform as people who have no connection whatsoever with New Labour." Senior Labour figures in the North West and in the party nationally are furious that Mr Hindley should put his name to such a meeting only weeks from a General Election that could put Labour back into power for the first time in 18 years.

However, some think that he may finally have gone too far in defying the party leadership and end up by being expelled from the party.

Speaking from his Strasbourg office, Mr Hindley said he was disappointed that Mr Pope and Mrs Anderson "make approaches to me through the newspapers rather than directly".

And he said that he felt it was an important role to talk to all groups on the left to maximise the Labour vote.

"It is not just the swing voters that we need to convince of voting Labour. There are many traditional Labour voters who need assuring and some persuasion to vote Labour.

"That involves talking to such groups rather than being censorious of them."

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