Maria Eagle becomes shadow culture secretary

Jeremy Corbyn has replaced his pro-Trident shadow defence secretary Maria Eagle with his ally Emily Thornberry in a reshuffle designed to create a more unified shadow cabinet.

Corbyn, the surprise victor of Labour’s leadership election past year, has been at the centre of a prolonged controversy since last week as he mulled over a reshuffle, which ended with the firing of shadow culture secretary Michael Duhger and shadow Europe minister Pat McFadden.

He said Ms Eagle’s replacement, Emily Thornberry knew nothing about defence and said concerns about her appointment raised by the deputy Labour leader, Tom Watson, had been ignored.

The leadership said Mr McFadden was sacked for comments he made in the Commons after the Paris outrages when he attacked the Left-wing view shared by Mr Corbyn that Western interventions in the Middle East provoked terrorist attacks.

McFadden said splits at the top of Labour over the issue were substantial.

LABOUR under Jeremy Corbyn was branded a “talking shop” by one of three MPs who quit frontbench roles today as the party descended further into chaos.

He told the BBC’s Daily Politics: “Fundamentally, I agree with everything that Pat McFadden said about terrorism and national security and not being seen to develop a narrative that somehow it’s the west that is responsible. I wished him a happy new year”.

After more than 30 hours of talks, it was announced Pat McFadden would be removed from the Europe brief for what Labour sources called “disloyalty”.

The MP has also clashed with Ken Livingstone in recent weeks when Mr Corbyn put the former London Mayor in charge of the party’s defence review.

Backbencher Wes Streeting said he was “gutted” at the news of Mr McFadden’s sacking, calling Mr Corbyn and his team a “shower”.

Corbyn avoided a mass shadow cabinet walkout of up to 10 MPs after he reached an agreement to keep Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, in his post in return for an end to public dissent over policy.

Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, John McDonnell dismissed speculation over Mr Benn’s position as “a lot of hype” and compared Mr Corbyn to Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.

In terms of her Culture, Media and Sport brief, Eagle played chess for Lancashire and England as a junior and also managed to play cricket for Lancashire on occasion.

Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn and shadow defence secretary Maria Eagle, who were both rumoured to be under threat, were among those to meet the party leader on Monday.

“They want this to be about disloyalty”.

“After the Paris attacks we’d had statements about France reaping the whirlwind of their own actions and every time we have a terrorist attack we have this argument that ‘what can we expect?’ – that this is somehow not really the responsibility of those who carry out these attacks”.

But his four-month tenure has deepened divisions between him and several of Labour’s leading lawmakers, including with Benn, who publicly opposed Corbyn’s position last month by supporting the Conservative government’s Syrian bombing campaign.