APPARATCHIKS at the heart of Labour’s youth movement were accused yesterday of acting like “classist snobs” when they discovered that a party member they had fallen out with worked in a restaurant.

Jake Johnstone, who has been a member of Young Labour for five years, said members of the youth wing’s top committee had “pointed and laughed” when they entered the south London restaurant where he works as a waiter.

In an explosive open letter to Labour general secretary Iain McNicol, Mr Johnstone said Labour NEC youth rep Bex Bailey was among the group.

She was joined at the restaurant by Young Labour national committee members Jack Storry and Jack Falkingham, former Labour Students vice-chair Ben Dilks and party organiser Ashley Wise, according to the letter published on Mr Johnstone’s blog.

“Upon seeing me stood working front-of-house and greeting customers on a fairly busy shift, they felt it appropriate to stand at the top of the stairs and point and laugh at me,” he wrote.

“I’ve been in this job for just over a month and for that to happen in front of colleagues and customers — it was humiliating and degrading to say the least.”

He said a colleague had told him that one of the group had said: “As if he works in a fucking restaurant.”

“Instead of upholding the fundamental principles of the party that they work for and support, they’re classist snobs who feel it best to intimidate and mock someone who they deem to be beneath them,” Mr Johnstone blasted.

When the Star went to press, none of the accused activists had responded publicly to the allegations.

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