That came as one of his top aides attacked senior figures such as Lord Kinnock, the former leader, as “relics” who believe they have a “God-given right to control everything”.

Earlier this week Lord Kinnock – who helped rebuild the party's fortunes after the disastrous 1983 general election – said he could not see Labour winning in his lifetime.

However in an interview with The Guardian, Sam Tarry, Mr Corbyn’s campaign director, said: “I think there has been a concerted effort between Owen Smith, the more hard-Right MPs [and] ... relics like Neil Kinnock to say that the Labour Party will never win a general election. It sounds as if they are gearing up for round three.”

He argued that MPs need to learn the lesson of their probable failure in attempting to topple Mr Corbyn.

He said: “The timing was wrong. It is the establishment against half a million people. They think they have a God-given right to have control of anything.”

James Mills, Mr Corbyn’s head of communications, said Mr Corbyn’s critics were trying to “destroy the Labour Party just to stop Jeremy” in a “scorched earth policy”.

Separately, a YouGov poll for The Times found that more than half of the people who backed Labour at the last general election and then voted to leave the European Union at the referendum have now abandoned their support for the party.