Senior Conservatives will learn on Friday whether Lord Archer plans to appeal against his expulsion from the party.

The disgraced former deputy Tory chairman was told last week he was being expelled from the party for five years.

The Conservatives' ethics and integrity committee said he had "damaged" the party's reputation, and he was given until Friday to appeal against the decision.

The committee said his exile would have been for longer had it not been for the "fantastic amount of work" he had contributed to the party.

Lord Archer said he believed the decision was "grossly unfair" and said he would be consulting his advisers to decide whether to appeal.

In their judgment, the committee said: "The conduct which Lord Archer had engaged in was conduct which, once revealed, was new and damaging to the party.

Rival party

"It is the element of concealment which also makes what Lord Archer had done in order to promote his personal ambitions more reprehensible."

There were reports soon after the expulsion was announced that Lord Archer had been approached to run in London's mayoral elections under a rival party's colours.

The millionaire novelist is said to have been approached by the Euro-sceptic Referendum Party.

Lord Archer was forced to quit in November as the Tory party candidate for London mayor. He admitted asking a friend to lie for him during a libel trial with the Daily Star newspaper in 1987.

Scotland Yard detectives investigating whether Lord Archer committed perjury or conspired to pervert the course of justice at the 1987 libel trial are yet to speak to him.