Shadow minister and Stalybridge and Hyde MP Jonathan Reynolds quits Labour frontbench

Jeremy Corbyn has put the finishing touches to his frontbench reshuffle, appointing six new junior shadow ministers the day after three resigned in protest at the Labour leader’s reorganisation of his shadow cabinet.

The removal of Pat McFadden as shadow Europe minister drew the resignations of junior frontbenchers Jonathon Reynolds and Stephen Doughty, with Reynolds quick to attack the UK’s anti-militarist movements.

He said the loss of Maria Eagle, shadow defence secretary, and shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn, would be a great loss as they are well respected by MPs and the public.

Mr Jones accused Mr Corbyn of “undermining” Maria Eagle, who was moved to culture in the reshuffle because of her opposition to scrapping Trident.

There had been widespread speculation over the future position of Mr Benn – who has been at odds with Mr Corbyn over bombing Syria.

“I’m going to be carrying on doing my job exactly as before, which is speaking for Labour on foreign policy, supporting Jeremy Corbyn and campaigning really hard to get Labour elected at the next general election”.

Eagle and Corbyn had long disagreed over Labour’s position on the U.K.’s nuclear weapons program Trident.

Although many political commentators believe Corbyn is leading Labour into permanent opposition, he intends to offer voters a clear choice against the Conservatives, rather than present what some considered a muddled policy under the previous Labour leader, Ed Miliband, who badly lost the May elections.

North West Durham MP Pat Glass has been appointed as the new Shadow Europe Minister as the region looks ahead to the forthcoming referendum on the country’s membership of the EU.

He said he was angry that people in Mr Corbyn’s team had been deliberately briefing newspapers that the New Year reshuffle was pay-back for the way people voted against air strikes on Syria.

There are four Labour/Co-op MPs who remain in the shadow cabinet.

At least nine members of the shadow Cabinet then expressed disappointment that Dugher was removed.

But Mr Corbyn faced accusations he was using the reshuffle to exact revenge on his detractors.

“He came to the view that with both Michael and with Pat he didn’t feel he had confidence in them”, he told Sky News.

Mr McDonnell said Mr McFadden had “distorted” the Labour leader’s views on a number of occasions and was sacked “because Jeremy needed to have confidence in someone who was in a major role”.

“Mr McDonnell said: “(Mr Corbyn) is re-dictating the terms of what leadership is all about.

“It’s a choice for him, in some ways I think it’s the right choice to make if he doesn’t agree with Jeremy, but if he’s using the example of Stop the War as a threat to national security I think that’s a completely bogus reason for resigning”.

“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”.