By Julia Penhaligon

Camborne and Redruth MP Perran Moon has become the first of Cornwall’s new crop of Parliamentarians to signal his willingness to “take sides” in the event of divisions within the Labour Party.

Mr Moon has announced his membership of something called the “Labour Growth Group” and signed a round-robin letter to Keir Starmer urging him not to back down on the ambitious new housing targets announced by the deputy Prime Minister on Tuesday.

Mr Moon declared:  “I’m part of the new Labour Growth Group of MPs focussed on taking the tough steps needed to grow the economy to reinvest in the public services our country is crying out for.  I was happy to co-sign this letter to the Prime Minister.”

Some have interpreted the letter as a call for tax rises in October’s budget, following the revelation of a £22 billion black hole in the economy left by the previous Conservative government.

Mr Moon is one of about 60 Labour MPs – out of 411 – to declare that building more houses is not enough and that Cornwall also needs more infrastructure such as roads, schools and hospitals.

The Labour Growth Group is currently little more than a What’sApp group but it is the fact that it exists at all which is interesting.

The fact that none of Cornwall’s three other Labour MPs has so far joined also has some MPs stroking their chins and wondering why.

At this stage the Labour Growth Group looks like a heavily male-dominated club whose members want to let their whips know they are battle-ready and will cheer on projects in their own constituencies which might be unpopular locally.  This looks more like a declaration of personal career ambition rather than taking sides in any Left-Right split.

One member of the group told the Spectator magazine:  “shit needs to get built.”

Another added:  “We’re not going to do the Corbynite thing of being anti-business in government.  We are not going to be councillors on a local planning meeting. We are MPs in our national parliament.”

But according to today’s I newspaper, Mr Moon’s Labour Growth Group could be “a ready-made set of rebels” if houses and infrastructure fail to arrive.

“I have an enormous amount of respect for Rachel (Reeves) that she knows what she’s doing and we’ve only been going three weeks,” one of the LGG MPs told the i.

“Let’s hold the government to account if – and only if – we don’t get growth. In six months to a year, that’s when things will start getting tasty.”

juliapenhaligon@cornwallreports.co.uk