Mr Corbyn was elected leader a year ago but was hit by a host of shadow cabinet resignations and a vote of no confidence from Labour MPs after the Brexit vote.
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Labour is to face a High Court challenge over its decision to give Jeremy Corbyn an automatic place on the leadership ballot.
Mr Smith, who was first elected in 2010, is putting his name forward to challenge Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership of the party.
Mr Blenkinsop said Mr McDonnell should not have been using the language he did to talk about colleagues.
Ms Eagle however indicated that she may be willing to run in a three-way battle against both Mr Smith and Mr Corbyn, telling a central London event: “I will leave Owen to do this own thing, I’ll do my own thing”.
Mr Smith, part of a new generation of Labour MPs on the left of the party, is now expected to set out a “positive campaign” focused on the party’s future.
The decision to automatically include the veteran socialist on the leadership ballot comes following almost six hours of closed door discussions, with 33 members of the NEC participating in the vote that came out in favour of Corbyn by 18 votes to 14.
Smith said he had chose to stand after seeing a “dramatic collapse of faith and confidence in Jeremy” over the last couple of weeks.
“To ensure democratic accountability and the rights of party members to select candidates that reflect their views, conference supports the need for mandatory reselection of Labour MPs in each Parliament as essential”.
The MP for Pontypridd had given an indication of his plans in a tweet on Sunday which said: “I am not prepared to stand by and see our party split”.
The Labour leadership election operates on a One Member One Vote (OMOV) system following changes made by Ed Miliband in the wake of the 2014 Collins Report.
Smith said he did not want to split the party, and would stand by the result of the contest.n “I will be Labour until the day I die”, he said. “It was because they can not tolerate a socialist as the leader of the Labour party leading a socialist administration”.
A second candidate joined the race today to try to unseat Britain’s embattled opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
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He denounced incidents such as the brick thrown through Ms Eagle’s constituency office window as “scandalous”, but denied they were committed by Corbyn supporters. I welcome the contest ahead.
