Labour’s Communist election boss dropped his double-barrelled name and hid wealthy background before joining Jeremy Corbyn’s team

THE ex-Communist who is propping up Labour's election campaign has covered up his aristocratic background and dropped his double-barrelled surname, it has emerged.

Andrew Murray, a hard-left union official who has long been close to Jeremy Corbyn, is the grandson of a Tory MP and was educated at a £32,000-a-year public school.

He even has an entry in Debrett's Peerage, the guide to Britain's aristocracy, thanks to his family's aristocratic and even royal connections.

Mr Murray's role in leading the Labour campaign caused outrage among the party's moderate MPs when it was revealed yesterday.

Until last year, he was a member of the Communist Party of Britain, and he has praised both Stalin and North Korea in the past.

He rejoined Labour after the takeover of the party by Mr Corbyn and other far-left politicians.

Now he has been seconded from his day job as chief of staff to union boss Len McCluskey to help out with the Labour election effort.

In professional life he uses the name Andrew Murray, rather than his full moniker of Andrew Drummond-Murray of Mastrick.

His father, Peter Drummond-Murray of Mastrick, was a banker and stockbroker from an ancient Scottish family who was a leading expert on heraldry.

The elder Mr Murray - who died in 2014 - held a number of arcane positions in medieval orders such as the Venerable Order of St John, the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St George and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

He was also appointed to be Slains Pursuivant, one of Scotland's most senior heraldic titles.

And his mother's family were said to descend from the Spanish Kings of Navarre.

Andrew Murray's mother Barbara was the daughter of Lord Rankeillour, a Conservative MP who later became Governor of Madras in India.

As a boy, Mr Murray was educated at Worth School in West Sussex, one of the country's best-known Catholic private schools.

However, he abandoned his privileged upbringing when he was just a teenager, joining the Communists and working as a journalist at far-left publications.

Among his many inflammatory comments in the past are a statement - quoting Nikita Khruschev - that "against imperalists we are all Stalinists".

He has also pledged "solidarity" with the totalitarian regime of North Korea.

John McDonnell today defended Mr Murray's role in the campaign, arguing that Labour had "converted" him away from Communism.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Well, he's left the Communist Party and joined the Labour Party, as have many others. We're converting people to our cause of democratic socialism.

"We're winning people to our cause and we welcome them, and a number of them will be playing backroom roles in support of our campaign."