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Disgraced Keith Vaz has been handed a powerful new role by Labour amid a bitter internal row over the selection of the party's next MP.

Jeremy Corbyn is at war with his deputy Tom Watson after scandal-hit Mr Vaz was given a key job selecting Labour’s candidate in Manchester Gorton, one of the party's safest seats.

Labour's whopping 24,000 majority means that whoever is chosen to succeed the late Sir Gerald Kaufman looks certain to win the looming by-election and remain an MP for years to come.

(Image: Christopher Furlong)

Mr Vaz was drafted onto Labour's five-strong selection panel at the last minute at the expense of shadow cabinet minister Rebecca Long-Bailey, a close ally of Mr Corbyn.

Angry sources close to the Labour leader accused Mr Watson of organising an “ambush” during a fiery telephone meeting on Monday that resulted in Ms Long-Bailey being booted off the panel.

Her name had been on a draft list drawn up by Mr Corbyn’s office ahead of the meeting - but in a telephone conference call key figures from the ‘moderate’ wing of the party including Mr Watson voted her off.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

The move will shift the balance of power on the panel significantly, with Labour ‘moderates’ confident that with Mr Vaz’s support they can now block the selection of Mr Corbyn’s favoured candidate.

And it reignites the long-standing conflict between the party’s two most senior figures, which began last summer when Mr Watson told Mr Corbyn to quit during the attempted coup by Labour MPs.

“This was definitely what you’d call an ambush,” a Labour source on the left of the party said.

“Jeremy’s team are furious with Tom - this is all about them stopping a Corbyn candidate becoming an MP.”

(Image: Jack Taylor)

Mr Corbyn’s allies are pushing for the selection of a young grassroots activist, Sam Wheeler, who was born in Manchester and is heavily involved in the pro-Corbyn Momentum campaign.

But his opponents within the party insist picking yet another white man in such an ethnically diverse seat as Manchester Gorton would not be appropriate.

And a leading ‘moderate’ MP accused Mr Corbyn of failing to turn up for Monday’s telephone meeting, so missing his chance to have his say. The motion to have Ms Long-Bailey removed from the panel and replaced with Mr Vaz was carried by just a single vote.

“Jeremy was perfectly entitled to turn up and vote himself. You cannot and should not take these meetings for granted,” the MP said.

“They are just bad losers.”

Allies of Mr Watson insisted Mr Vaz was anyway a more suitable figure to help make the selection, as the Leicester MP is the party’s black and ethnic minority rep on Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC).

(Image: Mirrorpix)

They pointed out Mr Vaz was also on Labour’s selection panel for the recent Stoke by-election.

Astonishingly he remains on Labour’s ruling NEC, despite having been forced to quit the Commons home affairs committee in disgrace last year after the Sunday Mirror revealed he paid two escorts for sex at his London flat.

Joining him on the Gorton selection panel are four other NEC members split evenly between the pro- and anti-Corbyn wings of the party.

East Midlands MEP Glenis Willmott and Birmingham MP Shabana Mahmood both urged Mr Corbyn to quit last year, while activists Andi Fox and Claudia Webbe both campaigned for his re-election.

The panel will interview possible candidates on March 20, with a final decision to be made after a selection event in Manchester on March 22.

(Image: PA)

Labour ‘moderates’ are now hopeful of securing the seat for a candidate they see as more centre-ground such as Amina Lone, a local councillor who stood unsuccessfully for the party in Morecambe and Lunesdale at the 2015 general election.

The highest-profile runner is likely to be Tony Lloyd, the former Manchester Central MP who is now the local police and crime commissioner and interim Mayor of Greater Manchester.

One local MP said Mr Lloyd has a “fighting chance” because “he’s everybody’s second choice - which is not a bad place to be.”

(Image: MEN)

Local MEP Afzal Khan today became the first candidate to formally throw his hat into the ring, saying he had been “urged” to do so by “friends and colleagues in the Labour Party".

The by-election itself is currently pencilled in for May 4, the same day as local council and Mayoral elections in Manchester and across the country.

This morning Mr Watson laughed off suggestions of an "ambush" at

Monday's meeting and vehemently denied there was any plot to weaken Mr

Corbyn's hand.

Speaking to the Mirror, he insisted there was no conflict between himself and the leader.

"Whoever briefed that is wrong. This is a fuss about nothing," Mr Watson said.