Telford Labour supporters backing Jeremy Corbyn to remain as party leader

The town is just a stone's throw from Newport, where Mr Corbyn was brought up and schooled at Adams Grammar.

Party members in the town are "almost unanimously" supporting their leader.

And they say the trend will continued throughout the country.

While MPs have lost confidence in Mr Corbyn, they say support throughout the country is as strong as ever.

Telford branch chairman Kevin Guy said Mr Corbyn was the overwhelming choice of members in the south of the borough – and added that he expected the north branch to follow suit in a vote on Friday.

Support for Mr Corbyn is also being reported in the south of the county after the party's NEC ruled his name had to be included on any leadership ballot paper.

Mr Corbyn will stand against former shadow business secretary Angela Eagle and ex-shadow cabinet minister Owen Smith in the battle to be the new leader of the opposition against new Prime Minister Theresa May.

Pundits have predicted the bitter battle could signal the end of the Labour Party as people know it, with talk of a mass exodus if Mr Corbyn is successful.

But Mr Guy said: "That's definitely not something that is being said to me by local members.

"People are sending out a clear message they want to stick by party rules.

"We are going to adhere to the NEC decision to put Jeremy Corbyn on the ballot paper. We are now looking forward to the leadership contest.

"Local members are concentrating on doing things for local people, for the most vulnerable people in our society, and we remain focused on that.

"The south branch of the Labour party voted last Wednesday and almost unanimously supported Jeremy Corbyn.

"The north branch have a vote this Friday. I would probably expect it to go the same way.

"There seems to be growing support for Jeremy Corbyn.

"Personally I think he has got some brilliant policies. But I am still a bit worried about his ability to unite the parliamentary party together.

"He needs to do that before he has the support of all the party members."

Liz Owen, chairman of the south Shropshire branch of the Labour Party, said it had also held a meeting to discuss the leadership.

"We did have a south Shropshire branch meeting and we did have a majority supporting Jeremy Corbyn," she said.

"My personal view at the moment is that I would support Angela Eagle because I think she is an excellent candidate.

"But I think let's just have a fair leadership battle, where we have a proper discussion, with no unpleasantness.

"Where each candidate puts their ideas and policies forward, and let's see who people want."

Despite the calls for calm, Mr Corbyn's brother has accused sections of the Labour Party trying to unseat its embattled leader of treating the democratic process with contempt, saying they are deliberately misrepresenting the rules of the party.

Piers Corbyn, who grew up with his younger brother Jeremy in Pave Lane, near Newport, also accused former Labour prime minister Tony Blair of trying to destroy the party.

Mr Corbyn, also a former pupil of Adams Grammar School, described MPs trying to remove his brother from the Labour Party leadership as "chicken coup plotters".

"I feel that certain sections of the Labour Party, and what they are trying to do to my brother, shows a lack of respect from democracy," he said.

"I am confident that Jeremy will win through."

The Labour leader's brother also criticised former prime minister Tony Blair.

Last week Jeremy Corbyn accused Mr Blair of misleading Parliament when he took Britain into the war with Iraq in 2003.

"He now wants to destroy the Labour Party rather than it continue to succeed with Jeremy as leader," said Piers Corbyn.

The Labour NEC has suspended all local constituency Labour Party meetings until the end of the leadership campaign following complaints of harassment and intimidation.

But shadow chancellor John McDonnell insisted that he expected an "amicable" contest which would focus on policies.

The timetable for the contest will be published on Thursday but reports suggest it will run well into September.

Supporters of Mr Corbyn will hope that, as a three-way fight, the vote will work his way.

Owen Smith's announcement that he would stand for the leadership came amid reports that the NEC has suspended all local Constituency Labour Party meetings until the end of the leadership campaign following complaints of harassment and intimidation.

In January this year, Mr Smith appeared to set his face against a challenge to Mr Corbyn, telling the New Statesman: "Jeremy is going to be taking us into the election in 2020. End of."

But he said yesterday he had decided to stand for the leadership after seeing a "dramatic collapse of faith and confidence in Jeremy" over "the last couple of weeks".

There was now a "widespread belief now in the Labour Party that, whilst Jeremy is a good man with great Labour values who has done a lot for this party and changed the debate in this country about our economy and has been right about lots of things like anti-austerity, he is not a leader who can lead us into an election and win for Labour", he said.

Mr Smith said the prospect of election victory was "distant" under Mr Corbyn and said he had met him on three occasions - as recently as two days ago - in the hope of persuading him to find a compromise to resolve the problem without a "divisive" leadership challenge, but had been rebuffed.

Describing shadow chancellor JohnMcDonnell as "part of the problem", the former shadow work and pensions secretary said: "To John McDonnell I said I feared he had decided that people in his part of the party wanted to split the Labour Party and he shrugged his shoulders and said 'If that's what it takes'.

"I'm not prepared to stand by and let the Labour Party, the party I love and that has been the greatest force for good in this country, split. It cannot happen."