Corbyn on the ropes: MPs line up to attack Labour leader over plans to give move power to supprters

A key Corbyn ally said there would be a 'more democratic' process of selection after the boundary review

Jeremy Corbyn is in a fighting mood to win re-election (Rex)

Jeremy Corbyn has come under sustained attack from his own MPs amid fresh claims he will use plans to allow Labour members to vote on Shadow Cabinet elections to purge the party of those who oppose him and "seize control".

Mr Corbyn is widely expected to see off the challenge from Owen Smith and be returned as leader at a special conference on September 24

On Sunday, it emerged Mr Corbyn has backed the return of elections to select Labour's Shadow Cabinet but has suggested a third of Shadow Cabinet posts be elected by the parliamentary party, another third by the leader and a third by members – although Mr Corbyn himself is thought to remain open to discussion.

But the move to include the party's grassroots membership, which overwhelmingly back Mr Corbyn is likely to be seen as a further attack on critical MPs.

The developments come amid claims in the Mail on Sunday that Mr Corbyn held a meeting with members of his close circle in which they discussed a plot to oust the deputy leader, Tom Watson, and the Labour general secretary Iain McNicol.

The Labour leader told Peston On Sunday that Mr Watson and Mr McNicol were "obviously part" of the discussion the group were having about the future of the party but insisted "we're going to carry on winning together".

But former deputy Labour leader Margaret Beckett described the situation as alarming.

"There's something strange going on where on the one hand Jeremy says, with all sincerity, that he wants to see greater unity in the party but the people around him seem to be going out of their way to say and do things that will cause greater disunity," Ms Beckett said.

"And Jeremy doesn't seem to be very good at disassociating himself from it.

"It's particularly alarming that there seems to be talk about removing Tom Watson who, like Jeremy, was overwhelmingly elected by the party over a year ago. There is no precedent for removing an elected deputy leader in this way or any other way."

Mr Corbyn went on to strongly deny that Labour MPs in constituencies that are redrawn in the boundary review were under threat of deselection.

“It’s not a veiled threat,” Mr Corbyn told ITV’s Robert Peston. “It’s not a direct threat. It’s not any kind of threat.

“I’m going to unite the party by reaching out to them. There’s an awful lot on which the party is in complete agreement about.

“The Labour Party as founded to be a part in the country and parliament and it’s a question of balance.”

“Nobody is seizing control of anything,” he said. “What we’ve got is a 300,000 increase in membership in one year. Any party that had that would be a rather different place. It has actually come from a wide range of political opinion.

“It is a question of balance between party members. There is a sense in politics at the moment that too much of it is top down, there is too much elitism in politics. There has to be much greater representation of the views of the party who, after all, raise the funds, knock on doors, deliver leaflets and deliver election results on which Labour MPs rely.”

Labour MP Peter Kyle has also criticised Mr Corbyn's leadership and backed claims made in a Dispatches programme for Channel 4 that there is a plot to deselect him in his Hove seat.

The documentary captured Mark Sandell, suspended chairman of Brighton and Hove Labour, saying Mr Kyle had "every good reason to feel nervous" and discussing handing out redundancy notices to MPs.

Mr Kyle told BBC One's Sunday Politics: "There are people who've fought for other parties for their whole lives who've now joined in the last few weeks and they're now trying to beat the Labour Party in a different way, and that's by getting rid of me.

"So, I have to carry on doing my job, their job seems to be defeating me."

On Mr Corbyn, he said: "You know, Jeremy is the first person I've come across who uses an olive branch as a weapon to beat people with."

Earlier, Shadow defence secretary Clive Lewis told BBC’s Andrew Marr: "Deselection hasn't come up, as I understand, as an issue but if it does, as far as I'm concerned that's a democratic choice for our members."

Mr Lewis also supported the idea of shadow cabinet elections with votes split between MPs and members.

"I think the idea that's come out that the PLP potentially could elect a certain percentage of the Shadow Cabinet, the leader another percentage and the membership another percentage is a genuine idea and something that should be discussed and reviewed.”

The Labour leadership election concludes on Saturday, and Mr Corbyn is expected to be re-elected by an even larger margin than last year.