Jeremy Corbyn has failed to maintain the momentum of his better-than-expected election result by dashing hopes that he would reappoint senior Labour moderates to his shadow cabinet to reunite his party.
The Opposition Leader has announced a new shadow cabinet line-up that sticks with his mainly Left-wing loyalists such as Diane Abbot, Emily Thornberry and John McDonnell who stood by him when the party’s most experienced and respected MPs and former ministers refused to serve under his leadership last year.
Former critics from the moderate wing of the Labour Party such as Peter Mandelson backtracked on much of their criticism of Corbyn after the election and called for him to restore party unity by forming a “broad church” line-up to challenge Theresa May’s embattled minority government.
The party’s stocks were boosted by a successful election manifesto and Corbyn’s popularity among young voters and many of the party’s most faithful supporters but his election campaign was widely seen to suffer from the lack of a credible and experienced team around Corbyn.
Labour moderates stressed that despite gaining 30 MPs on June 8 the party remains 64 seats short of the 326 needed to form a majority government, and to make further progress it will need to attract many more voters in southern England and other areas outside its traditional base.
Polling during the election campaign showed that while the policies in the Labour manifesto were popular many voters had doubts about the ability of Corbyn and his frontbench to implement the policies and deliver competent government.
Prominent faces who remain on the outer include former Cabinet Secretaries Yvette Cooper, Hilary Benn and Ben Bradshaw, former ministers Angela Eagle, Maria Eagle, David Lammy, Ivan Lewis and Chris Bryant, and one-time frontbenchers Chuka Umunna and Dan Jarvis, who have both been touted as potential leaders of the party.
Before the election it had been anticipated that Corbyn would do poorly in the campaign and the moderates might have then formed a breakaway Labour movement to pressure him to resign the leadership but those plans have now been ditched by Labour’s surprisingly strong results.
The one former opponent Corbyn has restored to his shadow cabinet is “soft left” MP Owen Smith, who has no ministerial experience but served as an Opposition frontbencher under Ed Miliband and resigned from the shadow cabinet last year to unsuccessfully challenge Corbyn for the leadership.
Smith said after the election that he had been “clearly wrong in feeling that Jeremy was unable to do this well and I think he’s proved me wrong and lots of people wrong.” While Smith has been appointed shadow secretary for Northern Ireland, another Corbyn critic Tom Watson was demoted. Watson retained his elected position as Deputy Leader of the party and his Culture and Media portfolio but was stripped of the chairmanship of the party, a position that had given Watson considerable leverage during the wrangling over Corbyn’s leadership.
Corbyn gave the chairmanship to Ian Lavery, a close supporter who has gained kudos for c-chairing the party’s election campaign. “Our party is now on a permanent campaign footing in anticipation of the failure of Theresa May’s attempt to establish a stable administration with the support of the DUP,” Corbyn said. “I am therefore appointing Ian Lavery, co-national campaign coordinator, to the additional role of Labour party chair to strengthen our campaigning and party organisation as we prepare to contest a new general election and form the next government,” he said.
by Peter Wilson
The post Politics: Corbyn Leaves Moderates in the Cold appeared first on Felix Magazine.
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