Webbe won her seat with a majority of 6,019, down from Vaz’s more than 22,000 two years earlier. The Conservatives’ vote share increased from 24.2% in 2017 to 38.6% last time. “Leicester has generally been quite Labour-heavy for years, but I think there’s a growing divide. I think Labour would probably stay in though,” said Thind.

Vaz, a former minister and Labour fixer, remains a party member and has many supporters among the local party and its constituents. His Labour opponents fear he may yet have a significant hand in choosing any future byelection candidate because of an obscure rule change at this year’s party conference.

The new rule, introduced by card vote 15, means byelection candidates will be chosen by a five-member panel, three of whom will be selected by the constituency party executive.

One local party source said: “It is well known that Keith and his allies have great influence over Leicester East CLP [constituency Labour party]. This rule change effectively allows them to choose the next Labour candidate, if, as expected, Claudia is forced out.”

Party activists said half a dozen names of potential candidates had been raised locally, including Vaz himself, although last month he told the Guardian he would not stand again. Labour and Vaz have been approached for a comment.

The potential loss of a second Labour MP after serious allegations could encourage Tory supporters. Outside Webbe’s constituency office, 64-year-old Ellen Anderson said she would probably vote Conservative. “It wasn’t worth voting in Leicester when Keith Vaz was around; unless you were a Labour voter it was a waste of time. It’s different now,” she said.

Bernadette Martin, 60, said she voted Labour for the first time in 2019 because Vaz had finally left office.

Webbe’s seat is on the outskirts of Leicester’s centre, home to many of the city’s garment factories. According to the 2011 census, two-thirds of the population were minority ethnic and 48.5% of people described themselves as Asian, a third of whom were Hindu.

Poverty is the area is high, with 42% of children living below the poverty line. In the area to the west of Spinney Hill Park, this rises to 51%. “We’ve got to think about our kids’ futures. A lot of people around here still don’t get proper wages; where I used to work I never got a proper minimum wage,” said one woman, who asked to remain anonymous, as she sat in the park.

“I think a lot of people voted Conservative [across the UK] thinking they’d do something good, but that hasn’t happened. I’ve got my mother-in-law living with me and she’s over 85, she’s always cold but I’m scared to turn the heating up as we have to pay the bills. We need someone who really understands what is happening to people in Leicester,” she said.

Support for Webbe among the left in Leicester’s Labour party is ebbing away. Helen Lentell, a local activist who campaigned for Webbe’s victory in 2019, said: “I feel solidarity with Claudia as a person and she has been a good MP. But I cannot support someone who can make threats like that against another woman.”

Claudia Webbe MP is the member of Parliament for Leicester East. You can follow her at www.facebook.com/claudiaforLE and twitter.com/ClaudiaWebbe