Seeking party control, Britain’s opposition leader changes top team

Mr Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain’s Labour, has sacked his European Union policy chief and transferred his defence spokesman to tighten control over his unruly party.

He then tweeted that Corbyn had replaced the sacked working class Michael Dugher with a “liberal Islington millionaire – a reference to new shadow culture secretary Emily Thornberry”.

Mrs Thornberry, 55, is known to also oppose Trident, and installing her was seen as crucial for the Labour leader, with a vote on renewing it due soon.

Asked for Mr Corbyn’s reaction to the resignations, a senior Labour source said: “He will be thanking those people for their service and the filling the vacancies”.

Both sides will settle for a draw because Mr Corbyn won a victory by moving pro-Trident Maria Eagle from shadow defence secretary, but suffered a defeat because he failed to shift Hilary Benn from his shadow foreign secretary post.

The reshuffles have sparked criticism by some other Labour members.

The most poisonous sledging between Mr Corbyn’s supporters and his opponents was over the sacking of Pat McFadden from his job as Europe spokesman for what the leadership claimed was “serial disloyalty”.

Mr Jones, Jonathan Reynolds and Stephen Doughty quit within the space of 90 minutes, citing differences with their leader on key policy issues and the treatment of their colleagues.

The Shadow Chancellor’s comments further stoked the civil war which threatens to engulf Labour in the wake of Mr Corbyn’s frontbench shake-up.

“We have got to be credible on defence in the country and I think appointing Emily is a mistake”, Mr Jones said. It’s true that the leadership election was a thoroughly democratic process, but since party members share very different views from the PLP, it was inevitable that Corbyn’s election would leave the party incredibly conflicted – a conflict that has reared its head over and over again.

And they should not be blamed: they clearly felt that, since they shared similar views to Michael Dugher and Pat McFadden, they could no longer play a front-bench role without feeling not only conflicted, but also vulnerable and intimidated.

McDonnell said Mr Corbyn was trying to “hold everyone together but be very clear about our direction of travel in terms of policy”.

Labour backbencher Wes Streeting said he was “gutted” by the news, branding Mr Corbyn and his team a “shower”. Labour MPs are unhappy that Livingstone is heading the defence review because, along with Corbyn, he is a long-time anti-nuclear activist.

Mr Corbyn revealed that the reason his reshuffle took so long was because he spent too much time listening to people. And what you’re seeing is people who came up under a certain system.

Mr Doughty dismissed her attack as “nonsense”, pointing out he worked for more than seven years for worldwide charities including Oxfam and campaigns such as Make Poverty History before an 18-month spell as a special adviser at the Department for global Development under the last Labour government.

He said he could not “endorse the world view of the Stop the War Coalition”, which Jeremy Corbyn chaired.