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The ringleaders of the plot calling for the Prime Minister to resign tried to keep their identities hidden by creating an anonymous e-mail for disgruntled Labour MPs to sign in secret.

In an effort to smoke them out, Nick Brown, the Labour Chief Whip, said last night that he believed they centred on a group nicknamed the Blearistas. As well as the former Cabinet ministers Stephen Byers and Alan Milburn and a group Mr Brown called “eccentric individualists”, the whips are also suspicious of Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, and John McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington, who unsuccessfully tried to stand against Mr Brown when he declared for the leadership.

According to The Guardian, the e-mail plot evolved as a way of keeping the identity of the plotters, thought to be a group of seven or eight individuals, hidden.

To this day the plotters have never met in one room and say that they will not until their letter has been sent to the Prime Minister. They decided that there would be a “stalking herd” of MPs who would fan out across the Parliamentary Labour Party. Unlike other political revolts, which relied on secretive meetings in dark corners, corridors or empty tea rooms, this plot would be conducted online.

On Monday morning a respected select committee chairman approached one rebel and asked for a meeting, adding, “Because I think we’re going to go, aren’t we?” The following day a Hotmail account was set up, from which a circular was sent to Labour MPs asking them to e-mail an anonymous address — signonnow@hotmail.co.uk — asking the Prime Minister to resign. They were told that their names would be published only if 50 signatories were found.

No MP was willing to claim ownership of the e-mail account last night, nor was it clear how many MPs had been contacted.

The circular provides MPs with a suggested text to send to the account. It says that Gordon Brown has made an “enormous contribution to this country and to the Labour Party” but tells him: “In the current political situation you can best serve the Labour Party and the country by stepping down as Party Leader and Prime Minister, and so allowing the Party to choose a new Leader to take us into the next General Election.”

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