Despite the media focus on the coronavirus outbreak, the Labour Party has managed to win some bad headlines by suspending Trevor Phillips, the veteran anti-racism campaigner, over allegations of Islamophobia.

Phillips, the first chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), has been accused of conduct prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the party. Jennie Formby, Labour’s general secretary, has suspended him “as a matter of urgency”, though an 11-page letter to him draws on statements dating back some years.

The irony is that Phillips, a Labour supporter for more than 30 years, introduced “Islamophobia” to the lexicon and lobbied successfully for the first law giving protection to Muslims from incitement to racial hatred in 2006.

Phillips, a broadcaster, has always been an outspoken figure. Some of his language seems designed to provoke a reaction. Labour wants to know why he said Enoch Powell’s infamous 1968 “rivers of blood” speech was “lauded as an example of the use of political rhetoric” (though he added that it ended Powell’s career).

Challenged on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning over his 2016 claim that UK Muslims were “becoming a nation within a nation”, Phillips argued that his point was that “we cannot continue simply to say that differences won’t matter”. Another allegation is over Phillips’ call to abandon “the milk-and-water multiculturalism still so beloved of many, and adopting a far more muscular approach to integration”.

Other complaints on Labour’s charge sheet appear bizarre, such as his saying many men involved in grooming and sexually abusing children in towns including Rotherham were from Pakistani backgrounds. That is beyond dispute.

Phillips has clashed repeatedly with the Labour left. I remember him as Frank Dobson’s running mate in his ill-fated campaign to become London mayor in 2000 as the official Labour candidate when Ken Livingstone, an ally of Jeremy Corbyn, ran successfully as an independent. Today the tables have turned. Under Corbyn’s leadership, Labour headquarters is now in the grip of the left. Many Corbyn-sceptic staffers have walked or been squeezed out.

Although some left wingers would be glad to see the back of Phillips, many Labour figures will be alarmed by the move against him. It will look, to them, like revenge for Phillips declaring he could not vote Labour in December’s election because of the party’s handling of antisemitism allegations.

Phillips believes his suspension may have something to do with his EHRC, suggesting Labour might be trying to intimidate the EHRC as it completes its investigation into whether the party is antisemitic. With his usual understatement, Phillips says this would be “pure political gangsterism” and warns that Labour could be “a great party collapsing into a brutish, authoritarian cult”.

Yet whoever becomes Labour’s new leader next month should take his attack seriously. It will probably be Keir Starmer, though he cannot take it for granted, partly because of a growing row over some members not yet receiving their ballot papers.

Lisa Nandy, who is running against Rebecca Long-Bailey and Sir Keir, has written to Formby expressing concern about the delay. She is worried that many of the members affected are among the 100,000 to join since the December election (who are thought more likely to vote for her or Starmer than Long-Bailey, the continuity Corbyn candidate).

Whatever the cause, it is not a good look for Labour, just like the Phillips controversy. It’s another example of the factionalism that has bedevilled Labour under Corbyn’s leadership.

Perhaps we are seeing the last hurrah of a pro-Corbyn party machine that suspects Long-Bailey will not win and so knows that change is coming. Not before time.

Although at leadership hustings the three contenders agree on the urgent need for the party to unite, that will not be achieved at the flick of a switch. The incoming leader will have some bruising internal battles to fight, as well as the daunting task of winning back Labour’s lost voters.

Crucial to the internal struggle will be this year’s elections to the party’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC), which currently has a hard left, pro-Corbyn majority. Making changes at Labour headquarters will not be easy unless the NEC fully supports the new leader.

It’s yet another reminder Labour has a long road ahead to get back in the game.