DAME Louise Ellman said her experience in the Labour Party had been “very traumatic”.

The senior MP and former leader of Lancashire County Council quit her party of 55 years in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and the rise of anti-semitism in Labour on Wednesday.

“Under Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party has become an extreme and uncomfortable place with no room for dissent,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“We have now come to a situation where the Equalities and Human Rights Commission is conducting a statutory investigation into the Labour Party to establish whether it is institutionally anti-Semitic.

“This is extremely distressing, indeed I find it very traumatic, and I think it does mean that the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is simply not fit (for government).”

Shadow Northern Ireland minister Tony Lloyd said Mrs Ellman “isn’t wrong” to call on Labour “to deal with anti-Semitism”.

He told the BBC: “There are many decent people in the Labour Party and the majority of people hold no truck with anti-Semitism and we’ve got to drive it out.

“I don’t want to be in the same party as that small minority of people who think that anti-Semitism is acceptable.”