Sources in the Labour leadership team have suggested that Malhotra should have vacated the room that is dedicated to a member of the shadow cabinet team.
Advertisement
Sarah Champion, the MP for Rotherham, has retracted her resignation as shadow minister for preventing child abuse and domestic violence.
He said: “It’s not kinder and gentler, is it, if you are the boss of an organisation and the workers are unhappy, to threaten to give them the sack”.
Breaking with the traditional question and answer format of the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, the shadow chancellor turned to the camera and said: “Let me say this: we’ve got to stop this now”.
A new United Kingdom opinion poll indicates heavy support for current Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn over his top challenger Owen Smith in the party’s leadership contest next September.
In a series of messages on Twitter she said Mr Corbyn’s position was untenable and warned: “If we’re not united, we’re doomed”.
She added at the time that she was not part of any “coup” against Mr Corbyn, but that she thought “Jeremy’s position is no longer tenable if we’re to be effective”.
Mr McGinn, who was elected to represent St Helens North in last year’s general election, said the party leader considered using his father in an attempt to “apply pressure” on him following public criticism of Mr Corbyn.
Mr McGinn said he and other Labour MPs had been subjected to a “torrent of abuse and threats” from supporters of Mr Corbyn.
His comments follow an extraordinary claim from Mr McGinn, who said Mr Corbyn considered calling his father – a Sinn Fein councillor – in an effort to “bully” him following critical comments the MP made in a magazine interview.
Mr Smith described Seema Malhotra’s claim as an “internal little spat” but said staffers should not have entered the former shadow minister’s office without her permission.
She said: “Labour voters were voting out of the European Union so they can take back control of their labour market, and our response was to call them stupid or to call them racist”.
More than 183,000 people paid the fee during the 48-hour window for such applications last week.
Meanwhile, supporters of Smith, the former shadow work and pension secretary, believed that he would gain more support as he becomes better known in the run-up to the September 24 vote.
And a spokesman for Mr Corbyn played down the incident and said claims of intimidation are “untrue”.
The pair will only appear at three scheduled events hosted by the Labour party before the victor is announced on 24 September, down from 11 held during last summer’s race. “That outrage is being organised by you – party members, trade unionists – and it is only when we come together and campaign we win”, he will tell them.
Advertisement
A survey of Labour councillors in the country’s most marginal constituencies has found overwhelming backing for Pontypridd MP Owen Smith in the leadership race.
