Jeremy Corbyn has been plunged into another row over bullying within the Labour party after more than 40 of his female MPs signed a letter calling for him to do more to combat “an extremely worrying trend of escalating abuse and hostility”.

Earlier on Friday Corbyn was obliged to deny that he had sought to intimidate another of his MPs by threatening to telephone the man’s father to seek his intervention in a row.

The open letter addressed to Corbyn, tweeted by the Dewsbury MP Paula Sherriff and signed by her and 43 colleagues, condemns the Labour leader for what they call an inadequate response to threats and demonstrations by groups who support him in his battle with a rebellious parliamentary party.

It expresses alarm that the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, and other shadow ministers have addressed rallies where demonstrations outside MPs’ offices or bullying at constituency Labour party meetings have been “actively encouraged or quietly condoned”.

The strongly worded letter says MPs have experienced rape threats, death threats and other incidents, amid a climate of worry following the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox in June. It adds that female and non-white MPs have been “disproportionately affected” by the abuse.

“We all have a duty to challenge and unequivocally condemn all threatening and intimidating behaviour,” the letter says, describing the “severe distress” caused to MPs and their staff.

It continues: “The culture of hatred and division that is being sown does not benefit anybody, not the party, not the leader and certainly not the British people. We hope that a significant shift takes place within the Labour party regarding the way we deal with future incidents.”

The MPs seek four commitments from Corbyn: to hold regular meetings with the women’s parliamentary Labour party group; to issue an “unequivocal statement” condemning actions such as demonstrations outside MPs’ surgeries; to “actively challenge” any intimidating behaviour; and to hold colleagues accountable if they attend events where threatening slogans are used, including on posters and T-shirts.

It ends by saying of the bullying: “Jeremy, this is being done in your name.”

A statement from Corbyn’s office said he was “always happy to meet with Labour MPs, particularly in relation to issues as serious as this”.

It added: “He has consistently condemned all abuse and called repeatedly for a kinder, gentler politics. No demonstrations outside MPs’ offices or surgeries will be tolerated, nor will abuse of any kind.”

A spokesman for McDonnell said the shadow chancellor had not attended the sort of meetings described, and had previously called for people to not protest outside MPs’ offices. McDonnell had “a long record of campaigning against all forms of bullying”, the spokesman added.

Earlier Conor McGinn, a Labour MP and member of the whips’ office, said Corbyn had threatened to call his Sinn Féin-supporting father over complaints about Labour’s direction.

Writing on the Politics Home website, McGinn said that when he was overseas in May he learned that Corbyn, angered by an interview he had given, proposed calling McGinn’s father. While this did not happen, the MP said, he found the suggestion “shocking and embarrassing, and almost unbelievable”.

McGinn wrote: “Jeremy does not know my father so I can only presume that because of the much-publicised fact that my father was a Sinn Féin councillor, Jeremy felt that they would share a political affinity and was proposing to use that to ask my father to apply pressure on me. Thankfully, others dissuaded Jeremy from taking this course of action. The call was not made, and it would not have been well received.”



Speaking to Sky News, Corbyn denied he had made any threats. “I don’t do any abuse, I don’t do any bullying,” he said. A spokesman for the Labour leader’s office said: “Jeremy did not at any point threaten to call Conor’s dad, nor did he call him.”

A source later said the suggestion had seemingly been made to Labour whips by one of Corbyn’s senior staff members, at the instigation of the Labour leader, rather than by Corbyn directly. Corbyn’s office denied this too.

Owen Smith, who is challenging Corbyn for the leadership of the Labour party, said he believed McGinn’s account. Speaking to Sky News, Smith said he was worried about what he said was a wider culture of bullying within Labour. Angela Eagle, who also challenged Corbyn, has received abuse and threats.



McGinn said he had decided to speak out after watching an interview Corbyn gave to the BBC’s Newsnight on Thursday. He said: “I am afraid I could no longer tolerate the hypocrisy of him talking about a kinder, gentler politics when I knew for a fact that he had proposed using my family against me in an attempt to bully me into submission because he didn’t like something I said.”