A Labour MP has claimed Jeremy Corbyn threatened to call his dad after he publicly criticised the party leader.
Conor McGinn, whose dad, Pat, was a councillor for Irish republican party Sinn Féin, made the claim on Twitter on Thursday evening and later said he thought Corbyn was attempting to "bully [him] into submission".
McGinn, the MP for St Helens North, claims the threat came after he criticised the Labour leader in an interview with House magazine in May by saying the party was losing touch with the working class and challenging Corbyn to relate to people outside of his constituency in London.
.@jeremycorbyn Did you threaten to ring my Dad - who you don't know - to 'get him to talk to me' after reading my @theHouse_mag interview?
My Dad was Sinn Féin councillor. When I - as a Labour MP - challenged Jeremy, he demanded an apology and said he was going to ring my Dad.
Jeremy Corbyn on #Newsnight tonight talking about kinder, gentler politics. A hypocrite who tried to bully me by using my family against me.
In a statement on Friday morning, McGinn said he could "no longer tolerate" Corbyn talking about "kinder, gentler politics" when he believes the Labour leader is capable of using MPs' families to "bully" them.
"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," said McGinn. "The leader of the Labour party was proposing to address an issue with one of his own MPs by ringing his dad.
"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."
McGinn claimed the alleged threat was "an attempt to bully me in to submission because he didn't like something I said", and said he was forced to make the claim public after he watched Corbyn on Newsnight on Thursday evening talking about kinder politics.
"That is why I have reluctantly and sadly chosen to make this information public now," said McGinn.
Speaking on Sky News, Labour leadership challenger Owen Smith said abuse in the party has become "commonplace" since Corbyn became leader.
.@OwenSmith_MP says he believes @ConorMcGinn's & @angelaeagle's allegations of bullying over @jeremycorbyn's denial https://t.co/EzCmbHJCZg
"I fundamentally believe both Conor McGinn and Angela Eagle, neither of them would tell lies about this," said Smith. "I would be mortified if Jeremy was proposing to ring up my dad to complain about me challenging him for the leadership, for example.
He added: "My fear is this all speaks of a Labour party that is in crisis, that we risk splitting the Labour party, and if that were to happen we would be destroyed."
A spokesperson for Corbyn said McGinn's allegation was "untrue", adding: "We never comment on staff on their conversations, but can confirm that Jeremy did not at any point threaten to call Conor's dad, nor did he call him."