Livingston MP Jim Devine will speak up against MPs who undermine the party
By Paul Hutcheon, Scottish Political Editor

A Scottish Labour MP will this week call for the whip to be withdrawn from a party colleague who said she wanted to work with Tory mayor Boris Johnson.

Jim Devine, who represents Livingston, will propose that Kate Hoey should be disciplined for her "disloyal" actions.

He will also criticise former home secretary Charles Clarke for his repeated criticisms of prime minister Gordon Brown.

The internal strife comes as Brown appears to be losing his grip on party unity amid plummeting poll ratings.

Labour discipline was said to have been badly undermined when Hoey, the Labour MP for Vauxhall, said she would act as an adviser to Johnson, the Conservative candidate in the London mayoral election, if he beat incumbent Ken Livingstone.

The admission infuriated Labour MPs who believed the comments gave the Tory candidate much-needed credibility on the eve of the poll, which he won.

Devine, who was election agent to the late Robin Cook, said he will be calling for Hoey to be disciplined at this week's meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. He added: "What Kate Hoey did was disloyal and unacceptable and I will be saying that the whip should be taken away from her."

He added: "Charles Clarke also seems to think he can come out with any criticisms at all and no action is taken. I will be criticising him too.

"It is impossible to think that any Scottish Labour MP would behave in the way they have."

Clarke has made persistent criticisms of Brown's leadership, such as when the prime minister promised "British jobs for British workers".

In an article for Progress magazine, Clarke wrote: "We should discard the techniques of triangulation' and finish with dog whistle' language."

"We should suspend the black arts of divisive inner-party briefing and bullying which penalise and inhibit debate and discussion."

He also wrote of Brown ally Ed Balls: "His injunctions about the indulgent nonsense' of private briefings against the Labour leader' certainly come from one who is well-acquainted with this kind of activity."

An SNP spokesman said: "Jim Devine is just exposing that the nerves of many Labour MPs are rattled as the polls show their support plummeting north and south of the Border.

"Gordon Brown's unpopularity and Wendy's U-turn have put Labour into a crisis across the UK, with Labour's support at its lowest levels since 1918."