Doubt surrounds Mersey MP Maria Eagle’s shadow cabinet position

The leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, completed the first reshuffling of his shadow Cabinet early Wednesday morning, producing only minor changes after two days of internal argument.

Jonathan Reynolds and Stephen Doughty quit over the sacking of the shadow Europe minister Pat McFadden.

In a letter to Jeremy Corbyn, Jonathan Reynolds said Mr McFadden “was right to condemn those who would to any degree absolve Isis [Islamic State] for their actions following the atrocities in Paris”.

Mr Corbyn fired Mr McFadden for “disloyalty” after he appeared to criticise the Labour leader’s stance on terrorism.

The divisions were laid bare last month when, given the freedom to vote with their consciences, 66 of 232 Labour MPs, led by foreign affairs spokesman Hilary Benn, voted against Corbyn’s anti-war line, and in favour of extending British airstrikes on Islamic State jihadist targets from Iraq into Syria.

Maria Eagle has been named shadow culture secretary after the removal of Michael Dugher from the role.

Labour’s free vote over air strikes in Syria meant Mr Benn was at liberty to make the comments without fear of reprisal, said Mr McDonnell, who compared Mr Corbyn’s attitude to the Prime Minister’s offer of a free vote over Europe.

Former London mayor Ken Livingstone, who is jointly-chairing the party’s review of defence policy, said Labour “will look at” whether the United Kingdom should maintain its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation membership.

Her role was reportedly also under threat in the wake of her support for renewing nuclear deterrent Trident.

“That’s not true and I felt that a position whereby someone I’ve worked very closely with in terms of making sure that Labour had a credible defence policy has been undermined and therefore I think it’s best for me to take the arguments on the backbenches”.

A senior Labour spokesman said: “Jeremy Corbyn addressed an issue that affects millions of people – floods – and didn’t get any serious answers, just a lot of insults and bad jokes”.

This week’s reshuffle had removed a “disaffected little group of old uber-Blairites” who had been engaged in a “wave of back-stabbing” created to undermine the leader, he said.

It has been suggested that Benn could be replaced by Emily Thornberry, the MP for Islington South and Finsbury, the neighbouring constituency to Corbyn’s.

In case you missed it, there’s a fair bit of drama surrounding the shadow cabinet at the moment.

She takes over the Culture brief from sacked shadow Minister Michael Dugher.

Describing the decisions as a “mistake”, Mr Corbyn then told the PM about a couple in York whose home was flooded, causing some Tory MPs to laugh.

“It really seems impossible to go on like this”, he said, but “those divisions will go on and on” because Corbyn “doesn’t have enough people from the hard left with him” in parliament. He said Thornberry “knows nothing about defence” and should not have replaced Eagle.

“I think when we say that terrorist attacks are somehow our responsibility, we run the danger of not defending our own societies strongly enough, so this was a difference of substance”.