Corbyn faces 'bully' accusations from Labour MP

A Labour MP has accused Jeremy Corbyn of considering using his father to "bully" him following comments the MP made in an interview.

Party whip Conor McGinn said that after being annoyed by his comments to The House Magazine, the Labour leader considered calling Mr McGinn's father in a bid to put pressure on him.

Mr Corbyn's office dismissed the allegation as "untrue".

Mr Corbyn has been accused of allowing a "culture of bullying" to take hold within Labour by his leadership rival Owen Smith.

Mr McGinn, the MP for St Helens North, accused the party leader of hypocrisy for talking about a "kinder, gentler politics" when "he had proposed using my family against me in an attempt to bully me in to submission because he didn't like something I said".

In the interview, Mr McGinn accused left-wing politicians of "sneering" at the public, adding that Labour is losing touch with the working classes.

"It transpired that Jeremy, in deliberations about how to respond to my interview, had said that he intended to ring my father to discuss it with him and ask him to speak to me about it," Mr McGinn said.

"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."

Mr McGinn also said he had been subjected to "a torrent of abuse and threats" by supporters of Mr Corbyn in the past fortnight.