Catherine McKinnell shadow Attorney General quits Jeremy Corbyn’s front bench

The GMB leader said there were tens of thousands of jobs at around 50 sites in the United Kingdom that depended on defence contracts.

“What role do nuclear weapons play in the modern world?” he asked.

On Now, Corbyn said he meant for non-parliamentary members of his party-more inclined to be anti-Trident than his members of parliament-to have a “large say” in determining the party’s policy with this problem.

Dugher will go head to head with the Labour leader when he addresses a meeting of the Labour First group in the West Midlands this Saturday, the same day that Corbyn speaks at a Fabian Society conference in north London.

Labour had an existing policy, Mr Corbyn said.

Mr Corbyn’s reshuffle sparked the resignation of Jonathan Reynolds, Kevan Jones and Stephen Doughty as junior shadow ministers. Mr McDonnell did turn up, but was late due to a trade union demonstration. McKinnell – who was replaced by Karl Turner, MP for Hull East – was the fourth person to resign from the opposition frontbench in the past week.

But the National Executive would decide whether that would be through a vote at Labour’s annual conference or a ballot of all members.

“We as a party, in the wake of the reshuffle which was an fantastic distraction from all of these issues, need to be coming together and doing the work to provide an alternative to this Government which is a very bad government”.

But one union representing workers in the nuclear industry said it would not “go quietly into the night” on the issue.

Responding to Ms McKinnell’s departure, shadow justice secretary Lord Falconer told the BBC: “I don’t think it’s right that we should be talking about each other, I think we should be talking about the Conservatives”.

He wrote in Sunday’s Observer newspaper that he’d created a “stronger, more diverse and more coherent leadership team”.

Garston and Halewood MP Maria Eagle had earlier been moved from shadow defence secretary to culture over her support for the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent.

Asked about Ms McKinnell’s resignation, a spokesman for the Labour leader said he would “thank her for her service”. Of course people are entitled to want to change policy. But there is a process and there are rules. I think they’re either in the wrong game or fibbing if they don’t say, ‘if you had the opportunity to be in charge and put in place your vision for a better Britain would you take it?’

ZDNet has reached out to the Labour party and will update if we hear back.