MANY readers will remember this phrase. It was used by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. 

It referred to those representatives of working people, particularly trade unions, actively opposing the free-market agenda being imposed on our country.

The leaked report, The Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in Relation to Anti-Semitism, 2014-19, perhaps reveals another “enemy within.” 

It transpires that senior directors wanted the Labour Party to fail. 

The report reveals plans to ensure a Labour loss in 2017. 

Not only did they deliberately sabotage the Labour election campaign but they also exhibited a level of racism and racist abuse that appears to be the casual norm among those officials.

The racist language quoted in the report is that which we normally associate with the far right. 

In addition, these officials derided Labour Party members and voters for supporting Labour.

We know what these officials worked against — a Labour government. What did they work for? 

In effect, they worked for the status quo. This meant keeping the Tories in power — ie to maintain cuts to our schools, hospitals, social care, public-sector pay. 

In effect, they did not want any change to welfare cuts and the austerity it results from.

However, were these officials the only ones seeking to prevent a Labour government? 

Let us go back to other sources in 2016. The Sunday Mirror columnist, John Prescott, former Labour deputy prime minister, wrote an article that appeared with the headline: “Labour rebels are worse than Tories.” 

He wrote: “A small group of Labour MPs is hell-bent on preventing a change of government we so desperately need.” 

He added: “Their actions publicly destabilise Jeremy Corbyn and the leadership,” continuing: “Shut up and let those who want to fight for the people who need a Labour government get on with it.”

They, of course, did not “shut up.” They, and the senior officials mentioned in the report, did not want to fight for the people who needed a Labour government. In effect, they fought against them.

The Sunday Mirror, in an editorial during the 2017 general-election campaign, stated: “With the Tory enemy at the gates, many of Labour’s key figures have gone absent without leave.”

It can be assumed that many MPs and those senior officials in the Labour Party headquarters did not want to fight “a war against unfairness and injustice.” 

There have been many inside the Labour Party who worked to undermine the Corbyn leadership and the change our people need.

We can only hope the new Labour leadership deals effectively with the “enemy within” and the racism they embody — and it needs to be done quickly.

In the meantime, a plea to Labour Party members. Please stay and fight for the values most of us believe in.

Cecile Wright is a Labour Party activist.