Bullying complaint over Corbyn team's list of names

Leading figures in the party were name-checked over their alleged behaviour since Mr Corbyn took the party’s top job.

The leader’s campaign team has now said the press release was a draft that had not been signed off and was issued accidentally.

It has apologised to the party’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, but it is not clear if that has been extended to the other MPs listed.

One of those identified has now written to chief whip Rosie Winterton and Iain McNicol, the party’s general secretary.

The complaint by the unnamed MP said the action amounted to “harassment and bullying by the leader of the parliamentary party” and said it was “not acceptable for Labour MPs to be deliberately victimised by the leader of our party in this way”.

Mr Corbyn’s team reissued the document without the list of MPs and the “misdemeanours” they had been listed for.

Neil Coyle, MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, who was among those criticised, said he was “fuming”.

“Desperate, trial by troll, victim-culture claims from an anonymous source backing Corbyn this eve. Fuming.”

Another MP, who did not wish to be named, said members would be “dismayed” by the “hit list”.

They said: “With one breath Jeremy calls for unity and for the party to come together and with the next they publish this hit-list. I think members will be really dismayed.

“For the record, none of the MPs they’re targeting has ever talked about splitting the party. That’s just not true. The only person who has threatened to split the party is (shadow chancellor) John McDonnell.”

The original release highlighted the behaviour of a number of other Labour MPs, including Jess Phillips for swearing about Mr Corbyn’s ally Diane Abbott, John Woodcock for dismissing the party leader as a “disaster” and Tristram Hunt for describing Labour as in a mess, using obscene language.

Ian Austin, Ben Bradshaw, Frank Field, Anna Turley, Jamie Reed, Karl Turner, Stephen Kinnock and Tom Blenkinsop were all also identified by the campaign over claims about their behaviour.

Mr Watson, who was elected deputy by party members, had been picked out for calling the grassroots Corbyn campaign Momentum a “rabble”.

A spokesman for Mr Watson said: “Tom Watson has received an apology from (press aide) James Mills on behalf of the junior press officer in Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign team who released this list by mistake.”

Leadership rival Owen Smith was attacked for appearing to describe the leader as a “lunatic” - something he denies - and accused of running a negative campaign.

Mr Smith’s campaign last week released a dossier setting out the abuse in the party it claimed Mr Corbyn had tolerated and claimed he was “more interested in deepening the divides within the party than winning elections”.

But in its reissued release, the leader’s team said that the former frontbencher had shown no real evidence of being able to unite the Labour Party and lead it to victory.

A spokesman for Mr Corbyn’s campaign said: “Owen Smith’s campaign has become concerningly negative, focusing on attacking Jeremy Corbyn rather than presenting a positive vision for the party and country.

“For the sake of party unity, Owen must explicitly condemn those who have threatened to split the party and tear it apart, as well as condemn the abuse instigated by his supporters. He must also make concrete commitments to doing his bit to foster party unity.

“Jeremy Corbyn has consistently spoken about his desire to unite Labour in order to take on the Tories and committed to continuing to appoint broad-based shadow cabinets should he be re-elected as leader.”