LABOUR’S plans to democratise Britain by devolving political and economic power from Westminster are incompatible with the party’s ongoing “purge of the left,” campaigners warned today.

Grassroots group Momentum largely welcomed Sir Keir Starmer’s proposals to “unbind the country from a centre that has not delivered,” but stressed the move must happen within a “pluralistic party culture.”

The call came after the Labour leader enthusiastically endorsed a report from the party’s “commission on the UK’s future,” headed by former prime minister Gordon Brown.

The ex-Labour leader, who was PM between 2007 and 2010, promised “the biggest transfer of power out of Whitehall that our country has seen.”

He identified 288 “new economic clusters,” mostly outside of London, which are “capable of creating tens of thousands of high-paying jobs.”

Local communities must be given new powers over skills, transport, planning and culture to drive growth, said the ex-chancellor, who also demanded the replacement of the House of Lords with a new, democratic assembly of nations and regions.

Sir Keir claimed Labour would aim to abolish the “indefensible upper chamber as quickly as possible,” but he did not commit to a timeframe. 

Mr Brown’s predecessor Tony Blair stepped back from promises to ditch the Lords after his election in 1997 and instead flooded the upper house with Labour peers.

The party also promised a new integrity and ethics commission to clean up “Tory sleaze,” alongside the creation of new directly elected mayors in Scotland.

The Scottish Greens argued the concession would “do nothing to halt the momentum for independence” north of the border, while Plaid Cymru slammed the report for failing to tackle “inequalities across the UK.”

Momentum tweeted: “Reforming Britain’s antiquated and unequal democracy is the right goal — that must mean abolition of the House of Lords.”

However, the group stressed the need for a “pluralistic party culture,” adding: “You can't democratise Britain while purging the left.”

Labour’s membership surge under former leader Jeremy Corbyn, which saw the party become the biggest in Europe by 2019, has been reversed under Sir Keir, with many socialists hounded out of the party. 

The former shadow Brexit secretary suggested yesterday that he “does not see the circumstances” in which Mr Corbyn, who was thrown out of the parliamentary party in 2020, could contest his Islington North seat as a Labour MP at the next general election.