A senior Labour Party member called for his own party’s prospective parliamentary candidate to be investigated in an explosive letter.

Ben Maloney, secretary of the Southgate Labour Party, was suspended two-and-a-half hours after a copy of an explosive letter to his party was forwarded to this newspaper.

In it he claims former Labour MP and candidate for Enfield North Joan Ryan is “a cancer at the heart of the Labour party.”

In the strongly-worded letter, addressed to the chairman of the Southgate Labour party Anthony Cleary, Mr Maloney raises several concerns about Ms Ryan, claiming she is “undermining" democracy in Enfield.

Mr Maloney was deeply critical of fundraising officer for Southgate Ibrahim Dogus, claiming Mr Dogus donated £1,250 to Tory MP Nick De Bois, despite the fact that he'd been involved in fundraising for Joan.

He also claimed that since Mr Dogus became fundraising officer he had “not raised a single penny” for parliamentary candidate Bambos Charalambous.

Mr Maloney, who had been secretary for five years, had intended to step down at the party’s annual general meeting last week but was banned from attending the meeting and from representing the Labour Party at any level.

Mr Maloney told the Enfield Independent he was “disappointed” by the stance taken by the Labour group.

He said: “What has disappointed me most is that the Labour Party has, instead of investigating the things I have said in my letter, all of which are very serious, decided to suspend someone who has volunteered for five years and worked hard to help the Labour Party.

“The party has turned a blind eye to this because of the financial benefits Ibrahim brings to the party.

“This is not Joan versus me, that was never my intention, but the things that she and Ibrahim Dogus are doing to impact the party in Southgate, are wrong and are causing problems for Labour.”

Ms Ryan said that she would not be drawn into commenting on the letter and stated that she would stick to the policies in the build up to the election and not “dirty politics".

A spokesman for the London Labour Party said: "Ben Maloney has been suspended from representing the Labour Party at any level."