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Labour MP threatens to sue Jeremy Corbyn over ‘role call’

Mr Corbyn said the plan would put the party’s more than half-a-million members at the front of its strategy to win the next election.

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The leader’s campaign team, which issued the press release, later distanced itself from the document saying it was a draft that had not been signed and was issued accidentally.

The latest clash comes 10 days before Labour announces its new leader, with Owen Smith challenging Mr Corbyn.

And in a blistering attack on the left, which many Labour MPs disappointed by Mr Smith’s campaign will claim he should have made much earlier, he will say: “The very future of the Party is at stake”.

The briefing from Mr Corbyn’s team accused Mr Smith of being the “real disunity candidate”, citing comments by Smith-supporting MPs Jess Phillips, Tristram Hunt and John Woodcock, as well as by Mr Watson.

“For the record, none of the MPs they’re targeting has ever talked about splitting the party”.

He said relationships had been rebuilt over the summer and nearly all MPs had “swung behind Jeremy” when he attacked Mrs May over grammar schools.

On key attributes, Corbyn’s approval ratings have fallen since he took over as leader a year ago.

“The tragedy is not just in the misunderstanding of the country – who elected Tony Blair three times, because they thought he was someone with the ideas and the leadership qualities to change the country for the better, and were proved right by the change we delivered after 1997”, he said.

The Labour leader also said he was growing an olive tree as part of efforts to rebuild relationships with Labour MPs.

But the party has said it will adopting a “no colleague left behind” to minimise disruption to sitting MPs.

Since the two are seen as representing rival wings of their party, the result of such a battle would be likely to be indicative of Labour’s direction. Smith described it as a “deselection list” that activists would use to target MPs. And then defended, on stage at this week’s hustings, by Jeremy himself.

Mr Smith, who is embarking on a whistle-stop tour across England, Scotland and Wales, will warn that his opponent’s policies will jeopardise jobs in energy, defence and manufacturing through opposition to Trident renewal, nuclear power, the pharmaceutical sector and the oil and gas industry.

This was echoed by Dave Ward, the general secretary of the Corbyn-supporting Communication Workers Union, who claimed Mr Corbyn “got rid” of Mr Cameron.

Last night, Osborne said: “Whatever the final boundaries, I look forward to putting myself forward to voters for re-election for Cheshire in 2020”. Some Tory MPs have criticised the proposals being implemented, unless other reforms take place alongside them.

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The party also plans to convene an “organising innovation task force” of campaigning experts to help the party overcome the Tories’ super-rich donors.

Yui Mok  PA Archive