Harriet Harman made her comments on The Andrew Marr Show Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman has faced anger from Labour MPs after her decision to disown expelled MP Phil Woolas.
It has provoked what Labour MPs and ex-ministers call a “mutiny” against the Labour leadership at Westminster, the BBC’s John Pienaar says.
Ms Harman faced the backbench anger during a meeting of Labour MPs on Monday evening.
Mr Woolas says he has had pledges of support from “dozens of colleagues”.
He is raising cash for a legal challenge to the election court ruling which led to his axing as an MP and suspension from Labour.
According to one MP present at the Monday meeting, Ms Harman was described to her face by one colleague as “a disgrace”. Another suggested she should “consider her position” – political code for resignation, BBC Radio 5 Live’s chief political correspondent John Pienaar said.
He added that a former cabinet minister said: “I have never seen anything like it. Harriet was attacked from every direction.”
Mr Woolas was barred from standing for elected office for three years after a specially convened election court ruled he was guilty of breaching the Representation of the People Act 1983 for making false statements during the election, in which he won the Oldham East and Saddleworth seat by 103 votes.
He is seeking a judicial review of that decision.
But on Sunday deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman indicated that Mr Woolas had no future as a Labour MP even if he succeeds in overturning the verdict.
She said it was “not part of Labour’s politics for somebody to be telling lies to get themselves elected”.
Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act makes it an offence to publish “any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate’s personal character or conduct” to prevent them being elected – unless they believed it was true and had “reasonable grounds” to do so.
A Labour spokesman said: “In terms of the specifics of the PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party) meeting, we do not comment on private meetings.”
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