ONE of the MPs behind the coup to remove Jeremy Corbyn was plotting to oust the Labour leader before he was even elected, an activist revealed yesterday.

Ian Murray, Labour’s only remaining MP in Scotland who quit as shadow Scottish secretary on Sunday along with other front-bench putschists, claimed to have “always supported” Mr Corbyn and regarded him as “a kind, principled and genuinely decent man.”

Mr Murray, linked to the scheming right-wing Progress faction of the party, said his decision to resign “has been one of the most difficult positions I have taken” but believed that Labour could only win again under new leadership.

But Living Rent activist Gordon Maloney revealed that in a meeting with Mr Murray about rent controls and illegal evictions near the end of the leadership election last year, Mr Murray talked about “evicting” Mr Corbyn should he win the contest.

Mr Maloney said: “I was telling him a story about someone we’d met on a stall who’d been evicted and it had basically ruined their whole life, and halfway through he interrupted me to say, winking, ‘well, hopefully if Corbyn wins we can evict him from the leadership’.”

Mr Maloney said that claims from “the Labour right about having wanted to give Corbyn a chance but this just being the final straw is complete bollocks” as they “wanted him out from the start.

“Corbyn and the movement he represents are one of the best things about the left anywhere in Europe.

“Two polls have come out since the referendum, one with Labour neck-and-neck with the Tories, and the other with Labour ahead, but these idiots would rather lose the election than win it on a socialist platform.

“That’s why the Blairites are doing this and we can’t let them.”