LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell have been accused of siding with “enemies of our country” and having contempt for the law by a bitter Tory MP.

Charles Walker sounded off in a letter to a nurse who had asked him to support a Labour amendment to the Queen’s Speech last week that would have ended the Tories’ six-year public-sector pay freeze.

In the letter seen by the Star yesterday the Broxbourne MP, who voted with the government to defeat the amendment, wrote: “There is simply no chance of me, elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament, supporting any amendment tabled by the Labour Party while it is led by the Marxist duo of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, two people who have consistently sided with the enemies of our country and have total contempt for its institutions of governance and law.”

The Tories have a history of dismissing even the least radical Labour policies as Marxist fantasy.

Former prime minister David Cameron accused former Labour leader Ed Miliband of “wanting to live in a Marxist universe” when he proposed energy price freezes. His chancellor George Osborne claimed the rationale for Mr Miliband’s plan resembled the argument “Karl Marx made in Das Kapital.” Mr Cameron’s Tory successor Theresa May came up with a similar energy cap plan before this year’s election.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove, when education secretary, consistently accused teachers of “militant Marxism” for opposing the rapid expansion of academy schools and their strikes over pay.

The Tories committed to retain the public-sector pay cap until 2020 in their general election manifesto but, having lost their majority, desperate senior Tories are now calling for a new tack. Yesterday it emerged that Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had joined calls by Mr Gove and others to reconsider the cap amid growing anger over pay.

A demonstration called by the People’s Assembly against the Tory government and its continuing austerity measures drew more than 100,000 people in London on Saturday.

And yesterday PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka called for a general strike to end the pay freeze. He said that ministers were “ducking responsibility” in arguing that the government had to wait for pay review bodies’ recommendations before ending the cap.

“Less than half of public-sector workers are covered by these bodies — and the Treasury holds the purse strings, sets the policy and has the power to change it,” he said.

Mr Walker had not responded to requests for a comment at the time of going to press.