The driving-force in the hard-left take-over of Luciana Berger's Liverpool Wavertree constituency party is linked to a Trotskyist organisation run by notorious anti-Zionist conspiracy theorist Gerry Downing.

Roy Bentham was behind a strongly-worded statement sent to Ms Berger following Tuesday night's far-left coup of the local party, stating Ms Berger, who was re-elected in last month's election with an increased majority, was now "answerable to us".

The JC can reveal that Mr Bentham was a regular contributor to the Socialist Fight website, run by Mr Downing, who was expelled from the Labour Party in 2016 over extremist views, including a vow to address "the Jewish question" and the suggestion that the 9/11 hijackers "must never be condemned".

We have also learned that Mr Bentham was expelled from the UCATT trade union after he made allegations over the misuse of funds - but he subsequently joined the left-wing Unite union, where he is a branch secretary and executive council member.

Sources who attended Tuesday's Wavertree consistency meeting in which Momentum gained nine out of ten local party positions said the atmosphere was "intimidating" and often resembled "a blokes' night out down the pub".

One attendee said: "You could only feel sympathy for Luciana.

"There was a really nasty vibe to the evening. There was a group of men, and it was nearly all men, who had clearly been plotting this Momentum take over of the local party for some time.

"There's about 2,000 new members who have joined the local party since 2015.

"There's a small hardcore ultra-left wing group who have basically been waiting to pounce.

"Some of this group, people like Roy Bentham have long been connected to ultra-left groups. It's resembling the Militant take over of Liverpool all over again.

"The real shame is Luciana is one of the best, and most popular MPs the city could ever hope to have. She is still massively popular amongst the ordinary voters in Wavertree."

Mr Bentham - who is at the helm of the construction workers' Blacklist Support Group - wrote for Socialist Fight as recently as May 2016, praising his city's campaigning spirit over the Hillsborough disaster.

He has featured regularly in the publication, which defended Jackie Walker, who is currently suspended from Labour over antisemitism allegations.

Socialist Fight has also frequently praised both Jeremy Corbyn and his shadow chancellor John McDonnell over their party's increasingly left-wing direction.

On his Twitter page Mr Bentham has regularly shared articles from the Communist Morning Star newspaper and from the Socialist Worker's Party's publication.

He retweeted an article claiming allegations that Hamas backed Jeremy Corbyn were a "right-wing smear".

A spokesman for Momentum told the JC, Mr Bentham was not a member of its group.