More than three hundred women are quitting the Labour Party today because it allows transgender women who have not legally changed gender to stand on all-women shortlists.

The revolt comes after a dispute over whether transgender women should be eligible for the shortlists, which encourage female candidates to stand as MPs and councillors. The campaigners say only women who have legally changed gender should be let on the lists.

In a letter to The Times today, ten women, including a former member of the party’s national constitutional committee, accuse Labour of being “disingenuous”, adding that support for self-identification “reeks of male authority and male supremacy”.

They write: “We are dismayed at the Labour Party’s support for sex as a self-identified characteristic for all-women shortlists .