On Thursday,Pesuttorefused to accede to Deeming’s demands that the leadership team declare she was not a Nazi sympathiser,prompting the upper house MP to announce she was launching legal proceedings to challenge her nine-month suspension from the party room.

Three Liberal MPs – Renee Heath,Bev McArthur and Ryan Smith – could also face sanctions,with frontbench MPs discussing options,such as stripping Heath of her position as party room secretary and removing Ryan and McArthur from committee positions.

Heath was involved in a tense exchange with Pesutto during Tuesday’s party room meeting that prompted a small group of MPs to push her to make a formal bullying complaint against the opposition leader.

Smith and McArthur –factional allies of Deeming and Heath – then refused to explicitly support the opposition leader when asked by reporters on Thursday.

Liberal figures are also discussing the future preselection of Smith,Heath and McArthur,according to three MPs who spoke toThe Age. McArthur,who has strong support across the branches in western Victoria,would be expected to comfortably win any preselection battle,but there are doubts over whether Smith or Heath – who won by two votes last year – could survive a co-ordinated challenge.

Heath,McArthur and Smith have been contacted for comment.

The chaos in the Victorian division has angered federal MPs,with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton hitting out at his Victorian colleagues and calling on them to be an effective opposition.

“The whole mess needs to be sorted out sooner than later,and it needs to be mediated as a matter of urgency,” he told the ABC. “The Liberal Party should have been more competitive at the last state election,they weren’t,and they need to be a credible alternative government.”

Dutton also refused to rule out a federal takeover of the Victorian division,which would see preselection,organisational decisions and administrative committee membership run by the federal body.

Under the party’s federal constitution,the executive can either launch a limited takeover in which they impose conditions on a state division or a full takeover and effectively dissolve the division.

The NSW division facedan intervention ahead of the 2022 election,but it only lasted for three days to select candidates for seats.

One senior Liberal party official toldThe Age:“No one is drawing up plans for a takeover,but there is a growing frustration[with Victoria].”

Responding to the threat,Pesutto said:“We don’t believe there is a need for federal intervention.”

However,he hinted at broader reforms to the party’s organisational wing,tellingThe Age he was “committed to reforming the party with my colleagues and making us an inclusive and mainstream party”.

Several senior Victorian Liberal Party sources toldThe Age that plans were already afoot to change the party’s constitution at the annual general meeting scheduled for August.

One option is to give the broader party,not just the local branches,a say in preselecting candidates.

Under a second proposal,the Liberal Party’s administrative committee would be given a more activist role in headhunting candidates and ensuring they would be valuable members of a government or opposition.

One senior Liberal,who in March derided the leadership team for attempting to expel Deeming,on Friday said any new push to oust her was justified. They said the Western Metropolitan Region MP initially had a lot of support from people who believed she had been treated unfairly,but that goodwill had evaporated this week over her legal threats.

The Liberal source said the latest saga had strengthened Pesutto’s leadership and all but guaranteed Deeming’s expulsion from the parliamentary team.

Deeming’s supporters are also expecting the new expulsion motion to pass.

Bach,the deputy upper house Liberal leader,on Friday backed calls for a second vote,describing Deeming’s legal threat against Pesutto as “an extraordinary move”. He said the accusations against Pesutto were laughable.

But several Liberals are frustrated with the drawn-out process over an expulsion motion they believe should not have been drafted in the first place,and say the internal fractures will overshadow the Andrews government’s anticipated horror budget.

MPs are bracing for weeks of coverage on the infighting and expecting tense scenes at the Liberal Party’s state council meeting scheduled for May 20-21.

Frontbencher and former leadership contender Brad Battin,who supported Deeming during the first expulsion vote,told ABC radio that he did not like that lawyers were now being called in.

“I’m not a fan of anyone going through a legal position,” he said.

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