Three MPs quit Labour’s shadow cabinet as Jeremy Corbyn’s reshuffle sparks

The leader’s reshuffle claimed its second victim after more than 30 hours of apparently bitter internal battling over the shape of the shadow cabinet.

Mr Jones quit his defence role over the issue of Trident after Mr Corbyn replaced pro-nuclear weapons MP Maria Eagle with unilateralist Emily Thornberry.

Europe shadow secretary Pat McFadden said he had been sacked in part because of comments he made in parliament seemingly at odds with statements Corbyn had made on the causes of terrorism.

The Labour leader said he now had more staff in place to help with the “liaison process” and said there would be the “closest cooperation” with his shadow ministers.

A senior Labour source said Mr Corbyn had reached an “agreement” with Mr Benn that there could be no repeat of the situation over Syria airstrikes – when they set out opposing views from the despatch box.

Jonathan Reynolds and Stephen Doughty left over McFadden’s sacking, Doughty quitting his junior foreign affairs brief live on BBC television, saying Corbyn’s office had told “lies” about why McFadden had been dismissed.

He said: “I actually wrote what I thought”. “The reason I don’t see it happening is because I think it would be inconsistent with what Jeremy has talked about since he got the leadership, which is about ” having debate”, he said.

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”.

“Jeremy’s position as leader is secure, he got a huge mandate – whichever of the other [Labour Leadership] candidates Jonathan Reynolds voted for, between them they didn’t come anywhere near Corbyn”.

Shadow chancellor and Corbyn ally John McDonnell was scathing of those who abandoned their posts.

Lord Mandelson said the party was “too far behind, too far out of touch and too wide of the electoral mainstream to catch up and stand any realistic chance of replacing the Conservatives, however unpopular they will be in four years’ time”. Issues of national security and defence go well beyond party politics.

Final details of Mr Corbyn’s reshuffle – the first since he became leader in September – emerged late in the evening. The shadow transport secretary, Lilian Greenwood, told Sky News’s Murnaghan that the party should “get on with holding the government to account rather than talking about internal Labour party matters”.

The target Corbyn and his allies really wanted was Hilary Benn, who had humiliated his boss by giving a bravura speech in favor of bombing ISIS in Syria.

Dugher said he did not expect the predicted big reshuffle to happen.

He said: “You start off with a chess board and that’s fine, then you realise you’re playing a game on a parallel board as well and then you suddenly find there’s a third board down the way”. We still manufacture things in the North East and we sell the things we make predominantly to Europe.