Angela Eagle has hit back at Tony Blair and others who have criticised Jeremy Corbyn's rise in popularity in the Labour leadership race.
At the final deputy leadership hustings in Warrington, the Shadow Leader of the Commons said that the former Prime Minister and his former aide John McTernan should show more ‘respect’ to party members making their choice.
Mr Blair told Corbyn backers to get a ‘heart transplant’, while Mr McTernan said that those MPs who had nominated him onto the election ballot were ‘morons’.
But all the deputy leadership contenders - Ms Eagle, Ben Bradshaw, Stella Creasy, Caroline Flint and Tom Watson - said that while robust debate was welcome, bitter attacks were undermining the party.
Ms Eagle, who has sent an email to party members in recent days declaring that critics should ‘leave Jeremy alone’, was scathing.
'I was shocked by what happened this week. This backbiting and infighting has got to stop. What we've seen, with senior figures making interventions because there's been one poll which puts one particular leadership candidate ahead of anybody else, is very regrettable,” she said.
"Using words like 'moron', saying if people are voting with a heart then they need to get a heart transplant, this is not the way to behave...This stuff has got to stop and it's got to stop now.
“Senior Labour figures should show respect to the membership of the Labour party, trust the members of the Labour party to make a wise decision about who we want to be our next Prime Minister.
“And instead of saying party democracy is OK unless it might come up with some kind of solution that I personally don’t like, that’s not the way any democrat works.”
Ms Flint said an honest debate should happen ‘without insulting people’, while Ms Creasy said Labour should be fighting the Tories ‘rather than each other’.
Mr Bradshaw said ‘people should play the ball, not the man or the woman’, but added that the most vitriolic outbursts had been from the Left against Liz Kendall, not least in the shape of the Liz Kendall for Tory leader Facebook page.
“Actually some of the worst attacks have not been on Jeremy, they’ve been on other candidates. Websites describing some of us as Tories, people who’ve spent our lifetimes fighting the Tories and that has got to stop.”
He added that the 'antics' of Labour MPs who rebelled against the party whip on the welfare bill had 'undermined' Harriet Harman.
Mr Watson pointed out that the deputy leadership candidates ‘all get on’ and had managed to debate without acrimony.
“I wish we could say the same for the leadership debate. I was extremely disappointed this week to see that kind of language. Liz Kendall is not Tory. And the people who are voting for Jeremy Corbyn are not morons," he said.
“It is a members led party now. It seems to me in the last five years the front bench of the Labour party felt a long way away from our membership base.”
Earlier, the leadership hustings had seen Mr Corbyn renew his call to scrap Trident, as well as refuse to rule out campaigning for a No vote in an EU referendum.
Andy Burnham defended his decision to abstain on the welfare bill, saying his resignation would have led to 'civil war', while Yvette Cooper said that the vote had been 'a mess'.
Mr Burnham also said that on immigration, he had found it difficult at the last election to look voters 'in the eye' and tell them that Labour had the right message on the subject.
Ms Cooper rounded on the Conservatives for claiming they were now 'the party of working people', but warned Labour not to vote for the candidate who 'makes you feel good' - a reference to Mr Corbyn - but to the best potential Prime Minister.