During the Jeremy Corbyn era, some of the leftwing leader’s fiercest critics gave up and left the Labour party: not so Luke Akehurst. Behind the scenes, Akehurst was doing what he has been doing since he was a 16-year-old political activist – organising to get his wing of Labour back on the front foot and later to help cement Keir Starmer’s control over the party. “In 2018, there were not many of us in the proverbial trench,” says one Labour activist of that time. Six years on, Akehurst is one of Labour’s newest candidates, standing for North Durham among a slate of many party officials and aides parachuted into safe seats with just weeks to go before the election.
Akehurst is, though, particularly controversial – even something of a hate figure – for some on the left, both inside and outside Labour. While Akehurst and his allies term themselves “the moderates”, their opponents would call them “the Labour right”. Some of the antagonism comes from Akehurst’s job as the director of an organisation called We Believe In Israel, which he runs as a non-Jewish committed Zionist. In this role, he has stridently defended Israel’s actions in Gaza as proportionate, and has campaigned to stand in solidarity with Israel – a view not widely shared across Labour. Momentum, the leftwing group that grew out of Corbyn’s leadership, described his views on the conflict as “a slap in the face to voters across the country already outraged by Labour’s failings on Gaza” and argued he was “not fit to be a candidate”. A former colleague who has worked closely with Akehurst said: “Ultimately, why he is hated by some is that he is proud of his beliefs, and he argues them, as well as the Israel connection. He is a believer in, and a friend of, Israel.” Other criticism is directed towards him for his efforts to wrest control of Labour’s national executive committee, conference agenda and constituency Labour parties from the Corbynite left. He now sits on the NEC, which is helping to select candidates for the coming election. Akehurst’s history of punchy engagement on social media and his Labour-focused blogs may also be a factor. Since his announcement as a candidate, he has defended comments saying that the UN was antisemitic, and that Jews were “politically black”. “One of the things that’s interesting about Luke’s reputation is that he’s much nicer than the internet thinks he will be,” the colleague says. “People who don’t like him turn up to have a row with him, and find a really nice guy.” Now 52, Akehurst delivered his first Labour leaflets aged 10 for his mother when she was standing to be a parish councillor. He joined as a member at 16, before becoming the national secretary of Labour Students, and later an agent for Frank Dobson, the late former Labour MP and health secretary. He stood unsuccessfully for the party in Hampshire and Essex during the Blair years. Akehurst also crossed swords with the left of the party in Hackney, the east London seat of Diane Abbott, where he served as a Labour councillor for 12 years from 2002. There has been speculation that this is ideally where he would have sought a seat, had it become available. But his political career was stymied in 2010 when he developed a neurological disorder and spent five months in hospital followed by a further nine months in a wheelchair. He now uses a walking stick. In the years that followed, while the party was in opposition, Akehurst turned back to organising through Labour First, a group set up by the MP John Spellar, who says its aim was to “roll back the takeover of the party by extremists, particularly the Leninist left who made Labour unelectable” in the 1980s. Akehurst became its secretary, and stayed in that role as the group played a part in organising against Corbynism in Labour. Akehurst’s candidacy is “enormously deserved”, says Spellar. “He’s very much a force of nature in terms of helping people around the country, and played a very considerable role in the recovery of the Labour party. Luke has been an incredible organiser for the moderate cause in the party and on the national executive.” As Starmer took over as leader, Labour First joined forces with another organisation, Progress, to form an umbrella group called Labour to Win, dedicated to bringing the party to power. Sources say it was Akehurst, armed with a spreadsheet of 650 constituency party names and details of their delegates, who helped deliver the 2021 rule changes at party conference that shut the left of the party further out of power. Despite his reputation as an organising linchpin for the new leadership, Akehurst is not personally close to Starmer, with the two men only having spoken substantially once or twice. He does have allies in the leadership office, with Matt Pound, one of the key officials involved in seat selections, having worked with him as an organiser at Labour First. If he becomes an MP as expected, Akehurst is likely to be well known by force of his personality and organising power, those who know him say. One says: “He loves a spreadsheet and backroom plotting. I’d have thought he’s destined for the whips’ office.”