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Supporters of Tony Blair, 64, could leave Labour and set up their own more moderate party if Mr Corbyn’s allies start deselecting MPs, sources have said. Former party donors have been approached about backing a new party, according to The Sunday Times. The move comes after supporters of Jeremy Corbyn indicated that they wanted to purge critics of the leader and change the party’s rules in order to strengthen their position at the party’s conference in September.

Reuters Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn attends the Westminster protest yesterday

Liz Kendall, 46, Labour’s MP for Leicester West, has revealed that she was threatened with deselection as an MP within 48 hours of the general election on June 8. The former leadership candidate had previously said that the appointment of Mr Corbyn would be a “disaster” for the party The former president of the National Union of Mineworkers Ian Lavery, 54, who is now the party’s chairman, has hinted that the party could break in two, saying that labour “might be too broad a church” and added that no MP had a “divine right” to remain on the party ticket.

Jeremy Corbyn at Glastonbury Mon, June 26, 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke to vast crowds from the Pyramid stage and the Left Field stage at the 2017 Glastonbury Festival Play slideshow PA 1 of 15 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in the Greenpeace area at Glastonbury Festival

He added that the party would look at “different ways and means” of selecting MPs. A former minister familiar with the plans of the potential new party said that Mr Lavery’s comments were “incendiary”. They told the paper: "The trigger point would be Corbyn trying mandatory deselections and turning the Labour Party into a thoroughgoing hard-left organisation."

Getty Former Prime Minister Tony Blair could back a breakaway party

David Miliband, the former foreign secretary, was tipped by the source as a possible leader of the new party and added that Mr Blair was likely to start actively opposing Brexit soon as a way of fermenting support for a new alternative to Labour. Referring to the new party, a source close to Blair told the paper: "If rule changes go through at conference in September, that will make a big difference to how people perceive the whole thing." Writing on the left wing Red Pepper website, Seema Chandwani, the chair of Labour’s Tottenham Constituency, singled out "disloyal" MPs including Jess Phillips, Stephen Kinnock and Chris Leslie, and said: "If you've not learnt to shut your mouth now, you never will… After leaving us when the going got tough, stepping on our heads and pushing us deeper under water, [do] you really believe you have a right to be on this ship?"

Getty Labour MP Liz Kendall has said she was threatened with being deselected as an MP