Sir Keir Starmer was accused of 'signing his political suicide note' yesterday over controversial changes to lock out the Left and prevent a 'Corbyn Mark Two' in future leadership contests.
The Labour leader faced claims that he would now be open to a 'coup from the Right' if the leadership rules are agreed by the party's conference today.
The threat, on the opening day of the party rally in Brighton, emerged as Sir Keir's deputy, Angela Rayner, openly positioned herself as a future leader.
Ms Rayner, who defied Sir Keir's attempt to demote her in May, publicly pledged to work to get Sir Keir into Downing Street.
Sir Keir's deputy, Angela Rayner, openly positioned herself as a future leader
But she also made clear her ambitions, declaring that women in positions of power 'shouldn't just say no' to going for the top jobs. And Ms Rayner, 41, boasted: 'If Boris Johnson can bluster his way as PM, I know for an absolute certainty I can do a lot better than that.'
Earlier, she used a newspaper interview to speak movingly of her youth on a council estate in Stockport, Greater Manchester, and the difficult relationship she had with her 'unloving' parents.
Ms Rayner, who became a grandmother at the age of 37, spoke of how she feels she 'can't be loved because I never have been'. The deputy leader described a home without affection where her bi-polar mother said she 'could only love one person at a time' – and that was Ms Rayner's father.
She said there were no hugs and kisses at bedtime, instead she would try to 'get under the blanket as quickly as possible' and put fears about monsters in the room at the back of her mind. Ms Rayner, who sports a Labour red rose tattoo on her calf, was given a rousing reception at the conference yesterday after vowing to 'stamp out Tory sleaze'.
The Labour conference opened yesterday after a week of chaos over Sir Keir's plans to scrap the party's one-member, one-vote system of electing party leaders in the face of staunch opposition from Unite and other big trade unions.
In a humiliating climbdown yesterday, Sir Keir was forced to drop that plan but won backing for a raft of other rule changes – including raising the threshold for MPs to nominate a leadership candidate from 10 to 20 per cent.
Ms Rayner, who defied Sir Keir's attempt to demote her in May, publicly pledged to work to get Sir Keir into Downing Stree
The party's ruling National
