George Galloway and Ed Miliband engaged in a public slanging match yesterday.

The Bradford West MP branded the Labour leader a liar after rubbishing the account Mr Miliband gave of their recent meeting.

And he described him as “an unprincipled coward with the backbone of an amoeba” – just days after calling him “quite impressive, physically and intellectually”.

The clash came after Mr Miliband described Mr Galloway’s views as “awful” in a radio interview and vowed to defeat him at the next general election.

Some Labour MPs have expressed bewilderment and anger over their leader’s decision to meet with the Respect MP, several months ago.

Mr Galloway was expelled by Labour in 2003 over his opposition to the Iraq war, and humiliated Mr Miliband when he snatched the Bradford West seat for Respect.

In the interview, the Labour leader insisted the meeting was held to maximise Labour’s attempt to defeat the Government’s planned Westminster boundary changes.

And he said: “I think George Galloway’s views are awful. He might want me to be Prime Minister, but I don’t want him to be an MP.

“George Galloway is not coming back to the Labour party. We want to defeat him at the next election.”

In a stinging attack on Twitter, Mr Galloway wrote: “Miliband’s claim that he repeatedly pursued me for a one-hour meeting about ‘boundary changes’ is, quite simply, a lie.

“I realise now that I showed poor judgement in finally agreeing to meet Miliband. An unprincipled coward with the backbone of an amoeba.”

On Tuesday, after news of the meeting emerged, Mr Galloway had said he wanted the Labour leader to be the next prime minister “the sooner the better”.

He said he was encouraging his supporters to vote Labour where there was no Respect candidate and opened the door to rejoining his former party “if Labour became Labour again”.

Mr Galloway was first elected as Labour MP in 1987, but found guilty of bringing the party into disrepute amid accusations that he incited foreign forces to fight British troops.

He co-founded the anti-war Respect party and won last year’s Bradford West by-election with a majority of 10,140, on a 30.6% swing from Labour.