IF the threatened vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn by his rebellious MPs is successful it will result in a stand-off between two warring leaders - one recognised in parliament, the other supported by the wider party outside of Westminster.

The no confidence vote will also provoke a furious backlash inside the beleaguered party from its wider membership which overwhelmingly endorsed Corbyn. The move would see the Parliamentary Labour Party replace Corbyn in Westminster, but a defiant Corbyn remaining as leader for the rest of Labour Party, according to sources close to the current leader.

Corbyn has made clear that he will not step down as party leader whatever his colleagues decide. Those involved in the attempted putsch must now decide whether to trigger what has become known as the ‘Joe Haines Option’ - a scenario laid out by the former press secretary to Harold Wilson following Corbyn’s election.

Under this, and following a majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) rejecting him, the PLP would set about electing a new parliamentary leader. The Speaker would then be asked to effectively recognise this ‘other Labour party’ as the official opposition.

A senior Labour source close to Corbyn said: “This plotting which has been going on for months has finally come to a head. They have never accepted Jeremy. Now they hope that they can supplant him or force him into resigning by installing an alternative parliamentary leader. But Jeremy isn’t backing down.”

The source added: “If this coup succeeds then you would have the ludicrous and highly-damaging situation where someone installed by a small coterie of MPs would be fighting Jeremy to sit on the front bench, claiming to represent Labour - while Jeremy remains the leader in the eyes of the wider party throughout the country. The rebels have no intention of putting their choice to the wider party because they know they would lose. So much for democracy.”

If Speaker John Bercow did accept the new grouping it would be entitled to what’s known as the Short Money which finances the opposition.

The favourite to stand for the rebels if they don’t back down is the Barnsley MP Dan Jarvis, a former officer in the Parachute Regiment who, friends say, is ready to step into the frontline after the death of his wife.

Veteran Labour MPs Dame Margaret Hodge and Ann Coffey, who have little to lose, have put their heads above the parapet and tabled the no confidence motion which is to be discussed at tomorrow’s meeting of the PLP chaired by Leyton and Wanstead MP John Cryer. He will have to decide whether there is to be a secret ballot, which the rebels want, or if it will be the public usual show of hands.

The plotters want to keep their votes secret because they fear that they will risk deselection if they are seen to have conspired to remove Corbyn who was elected on the overwhelming vote of the membership - a risk Haines believes is worth taking - stressing that such deselections are “few and far between”.

Even if passed overwhelmingly, constitutionally the vote cannot force Corbyn to go. The rebels are hopeful that if he were to ignore the vote several shadow cabinet members would resign and openly call for him to go.

Haines is scathing about the wider membership of the party which elected Corbyn: “It is the Parliamentary Labour Party that represents the Labour vote in Britain, not the 423,000 people, including the ragbag of ‘registered supporters’, who voted in the leadership contest. And it is up to the PLP to do something about it.

“Theirs is the true legitimacy. The parliamentary party is the most powerful force in the labour movement, far stronger than the total union membership, a significant part of which doesn’t vote for us anyway.”

Corbyn and his supporters will insist to Cryer that the motion is voted on openly, as is normal procedure. They believe that, apart from hard-liners hell-bent on defenestrating the leader, the majority of the rest of the Labour MPs, while wanting to remove him, will not risk declaring their opposition publicly on pain of possible deselection.

Corbyn however is in definant mode. “Yes, I’m here, thank you,” he said yesterday in a post-Brexit speech in London. “There are some people in the Parliamentary Labour party who would probably want somebody else being the leader of this party, they have made that abundantly clear in the past few days.”

Former minister Frank Field became the latest senior Labour figure to criticise the leader in public. Accusing Corbyn of often talking “claptrap”, Field said: “He clearly isn’t the right person to actually lead the party into an election because nobody thinks he will actually win. We clearly need somebody who the public think of as an alternative prime minister.”

The rebels, who have been considering a move against their leader since he was elected over their heads, are using the pretext of a lacklustre performance in the referendum campaign.

Margaret Hodge claimed that under PLP rules it should be a secret ballot for her motion which would embolden disgruntled MPs to move against Corbyn without the fear of a backlash from his grassroots supporters in the Momentum campaign group.

Anne Coffey, the MP who has seconded the motion, said: “The result of the European Union referendum leaves this country in a mess. Leaders have to take responsibility and he [Corbyn] has to take his share of responsibility for this, and he should resign.”

She added: “I think, over the weeks, there has been consistent dissatisfaction with him over the referendum campaign, that is not something that is new really, and that dissatisfaction has increased rather than decreased towards the end of the campaign. So this motion gives the parliamentary party ... their own right to have a view about his leadership.”

Labour peer Lord David Blunkett said he did not want Corbyn to remain leader for the long term, but said the more urgent challenge facing the party was to work out what it stands for.

The former cabinet minister said: “I didn’t vote for him, I’m not in favour of Jeremy being the long-term leader of the Labour Party, but throwing eggs at him at the moment actually isn’t going to change anything. Jeremy isn’t the problem. His project and those around him are the problem.”