This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen
on .
It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
John McDonnell appointed shadow chancellor in Corbyn's new frontbench
John McDonnell appointed shadow chancellor on Corbyn's new frontbench
(about 1 hour later)
Jeremy Corbyn has made his first key appointments as Labour leader, asking veteran leftwinger John McDonnell to be his shadow chancellor and his leadership rival Andy Burnham to be shadow home secretary.
Jeremy Corbyn, the new Labour leader, is facing the first test of his new political mandate after appointing his closest political ally, John McDonnell, as shadow chancellor. The decision means that the five most senior positions will be filled by men, including Andy Burnham as shadow home secretary and Hilary Benn as shadow foreign secretary.
Yvette Cooper, another of Corbyn’s leadership rivals, will not be in the shadow cabinet but will chair a taskforce on refugees.
There had been fierce resistance within the shadow cabinet and even among some union leaders to the appointment of McDonnell, with some asking Corbyn to appoint Angela Eagle as shadow chancellor, to balance the shadow cabinet politically and by gender. Eagle was instead given the post of shadow business secretary and will also become shadow first secretary of state, deputising for Corbyn in the Commons.
In an announcement from the Labour party on Sunday night, it was also confirmed that Hilary Benn would remain shadow foreign secretary, Lord Falconer would stay on as shadow justice secretary, while Heidi Alexander would be appointed shadow health secretary.
McDonnell was Corbyn’s leadership campaign manager and has advocated nationalisation without compensation in the past as well as 60p tax rates. Inside the parliamentary party, his appointment was seen as a disavowal of Corbyn’s commitment to create a political consensus.
Angela Eagle was appointed shadow business secretary and Seema Malhotra would be shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, the party said. Diane Abbott was appointed shadow communities secretary and Vernon Coaker shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland.
The lack of high-profile jobs for women went down badly with many. The Labour MP for Hull North, Diana Johnson tweeted:
The announcement means that the four top roles – leader, shadow chancellor, shadow home secretary and shadow foreign secretary – have all been filled by men.
It is so very disappointing - old fashioned male dominated Labour politics in the top positions in Shadow Cabinet #notforgirls
Corbyn made the decision after spending the afternoon and evening in discussions in the House of Commons with Labour’s chief whip, Rosie Winterton, who he asked to stay in the post shortly after his landslide victory on Saturday.
But Corbyn has witnessed the political difficulties inside the party when the leader and its chief economics spokesman are not instinctive allies.
Corbyn had been urged by some to appoint McDonnell to the shadow chancellorship, so his oldest political ally could lead his central political mission to build support for a strong anti-austerity economic programme. But some leading Labour MPs said this would represent a declaration of war by Corbyn and run against his commitment to build a consensual shadow cabinet.
In further appointments, Corbyn made Lucy Powell, a former chief of staff to Ed Miliband, the new shadow education secretary. Michael Dugher, campaign manager to Burnham and previously shadow transport secretary, was made shadow culture secretary. Diane Abbott was appointed shadow secretary of state for international development.
A number of former shadow cabinet ministers confirmed they would not be serving, having earlier suggested they could be willing to do so in the right circumstances.
In a further sign of the deep tensions inside the party in the wake of Corbyn’s extraordinary election on Saturday, Chuka Umunna quit the front bench, saying he had been unable to secure an unambiguous promise from Corbyn that Labour would campaign for Britain to remain inside Europe in the coming referendum.
Former shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna was not offered a frontbench role and said he was leaving the top team by mutual agreement. He claimed the decision was made because he had not received unambiguous assurances that a Corbyn leadership would support Britain’s continued membership of the European Union in the coming referendum.
Umunna had not been offered a specific job in a conversation with the new Labour leader and his decision not to serve was a further sign of the deep ideological tensions between Corbyn and sections of the parliamentary party. During the 1980s, Europe was the issue that spiralled out of control for Labour and led to a split inside the party. Pro-Europeans across politics will be worried at Corbyn’s willingness to countenance the UK leaving the EU.
Related: Chuka Umunna quits over Jeremy Corbyn’s EU stance
Tom Watson, elected deputy leader on Saturday, said on Sunday that he thought Labour must support remaining in Europe and stressed that he supported a renewal of the Trident nuclear submarine system, a position Corbyn has rejected for a decade and had made a centrepiece of his triumphant leadership campaign.
It emerged that Shabana Mahmood, the shadow Treasury chief secretary, has refused to work with Corbyn, while Ivan Lewis, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, was sacked despite saying he was willing to stay on until Christmas to help tackle the political crisis in the province. Mary Creagh, former shadow development secretary, also said she had decided not to serve.
Umunna spoke to Corbyn on Sunday afternoon and later issued a statement saying: “There are a number of key points of difference on policy which I believe it would be dishonest to deny exist. If Jeremy’s clear victory yesterday demonstrated anything, it was a desire for politicians to be true to what they believe – I want to abide by this.
“Jeremy should be free to appoint a shadow cabinet committed to implementing the policies on which he campaigned in the contest. I clearly had some differences in view on how we build a more equal, democratic, free and fair society.
“Given these differences, not least on the European referendum, I would find it difficult to abide by the collective responsibility that comes with serving in the shadow cabinet. It is my view that we should support the UK remaining a member of the EU, notwithstanding the outcome of any renegotiation by the prime minister, and I cannot envisage any circumstances where I would be campaigning alongside those who would argue for us to leave; Jeremy has made it clear to me that he does not wholeheartedly share this view.”
Insisting he would not be a thorn in Corbyn’s side from the backbenches, Umunna said he would be working with Keith Vaz on an independent review into the support for Labour among ethnic minorities.
Meanwhile, the newly elected deputy leader, Tom Watson, insisted that Britain must remain a supporter of the EU as the world’s largest trading bloc.
Watson has asked Corbyn to confirm his support for UK membership of both Nato and the EU and to allow a full debate within the party about a renewal of the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent. Watson is a strong supporter of Trident renewal, as are many leading unions, and said it was best to be honest about his position.
Watson admitted he was not sure of Corbyn’s policy on Nato, but Corbyn appeared to soften his position during his campaign for leadership, although he remained committed to rejecting another generation of British nuclear weapons.
Related: Tom Watson: unifying stalwart or manipulative and divisive fixer?
Related: Tom Watson: unifying stalwart or manipulative and divisive fixer?
Corbyn’s apparent refusal to rule out opposing UK continued membership to the EU reflects his desire to keep his options open and see what David Cameron negotiates with his EU partners. Many on the left fear that the prime minister wants to negotiate away hard-won employment rights or to ensure the City of London remains only loosely regulated. There is also a gathering hostility to the EU on the British left in the wake of the German treatment of Greece in its debt crisis.
After a day – and night – at Westminster huddled with advisers, including the reappointed shadow chief whip Rosie Winterton, Corbyn faced a slow drip of ministerial resignations and then, late in the evening, moved to stabilise the parliamentary party by making a series of appointments. Alongside Corbyn and Watson’s own election, the quintet now at the top of the party is entirely male.
Umunna’s statement is the clearest ideological difference to emerge between Corbyn and the MPs who opposed him. Many of those who are hostile to Corbyn know they have to tread cautiously since if they refuse to serve too readily, or without ideological justification, they risk being branded disloyal by a party membership that has just elected Corbyn with such an emphatic vote.
Both Harriet Harman as deputy leader and Yvette Cooper as shadow home secretary have stood down. Cooper will head a taskforce examining the refugee crisis.
The new leader has made a commitment to appoint women to half the shadow cabinet posts, and promotions are likely for Lucy Powell, Gloria Del Piero, Emily Thornberry and Lisa Nandy.
In a bid to counter the gender imbalance, Corbyn announced Abbott’s appointment and said that the relatively unknown but respected Heidi Alexander would take the post of shadow health secretary and Seema Malhotra will act as shadow chief secretary to the Treasury.
Sir Paul Kenny, the general secretary of the GMB union, called for MPs who opposed Corbyn’s election to leave the party if they planned to “snipe” and ponder their future in public. Kenny said: “I understand why some people say they cannot serve in the shadow cabinet. I can respect that. But frankly, if they are going to spend the rest of whatever time it is constantly sniping, talking about rumours of leaving, then the best thing they can do is go. Go off into the oblivion [like] previous splitters from the Labour party have done.”
The existing shadow justice secretary Lord Falconer, an ally of Burnham and one-time Blairite, will remain as shadow lord chancellor. Corbyn had previously promised half the shadow cabinet would be women.
Len McCluskey, the Unite union’s general secretary said: “I think you’ll see a shadow cabinet that’ll shock all of you. It’ll be a talented shadow cabinet, perhaps the best we’ve seen for many years. I think it’ll be balanced and it’ll be drawn from all elements of the party.”
Alexander, a former whip, has helped establish the “Red Shift” group set up in the wake of the election defeat, calling for the party to show that it understood that “money did not grow on trees”.
Related: Blairism is dead and buried. Jeremy Corbyn is the future | Len McCluskey
McDonnell, an hour before the announcement of his new position wa made, shared a platform with Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister at a TUC fringe meeting. He defended the appointments which were soon to be declared.
Watson told BBC1’s Andrew Marr programme that there was zero chance of a coup against Corbyn. “Labour party members will not accept that,” he said. “It’s fine for people to leave the frontbench – I’ve done it myself a few times – but you have got to have the spirit of unity in your heart when you do it.
“I am hoping that within the hour we will have a shadow cabinet put together. As you know, that has been slightly more challenging than the traditional shadow cabinet. It will be as broad-based as we could possibly make it and as inclusive as possible,” he said.
“And you want to try [to] make it work but enjoy the freedom to speak out. I’m sure Jeremy will respect that. And what I do know from my own experience is there is always someone else that can do a frontbench job.
McDonnell, the former head of finance at the GLC under Ken Livingstone, quipped that some people were already trying to compare him to Varoufakis because of his anti-austerity views: “Someone said to me ‘are you going to be Britain’s Yanis Varoufakis?’ And I said, ‘I could never be that cool,’” he said, to laughter from a supportive audience.
“I understand the concern of my colleagues in parliament, this is a huge change for the Labour party [and] there is no point in denying this is a huge political realignment, too. But Jeremy Corbyn has got a huge mandate from our members.”
Former cabinet minister Lord Hattersley accused moderates refusing to serve of “self-indulgent nonsense” and an “abdication” of their duty to fight against extreme policies.
Writing in the Guardian, he said Corbyn was “incapable of leading the Labour party to victory at the next general election” and joined warnings of a return to the party’s 1980s electoral oblivion.
Related: Corbyn victory energises the alienated and alienates the establishment | Gary Younge
Related: Corbyn victory energises the alienated and alienates the establishment | Gary Younge
“Unless some drastic action is quickly taken, there is a real risk of disintegration,” he wrote. “Refusing to serve in the shadow cabinet is self-indulgent nonsense. As well as providing an excuse for Corbyn to promote nonentities, refusal denies senior MPs a ready-made platform from which to express their dissent.”
Regarding the trade union bill, which will go before the Commons on Monday, McDonnell said that he and Corbyn would “expect” Labour MPs to vote against it during its second reading in Parliament and will convene a conference for those who oppose austerity right across Europe.
Labour reported that a further 15,000 people had joined the party since Corbyn’s election on Saturday.
He refused to say whether a Corbyn-McDonnell administration would support or reject withdrawal from the EU.
“Jeremy has made it clear is that what we should be working with parties across Europe for is a reform package across Europe itself. Whatever [David] Cameron comes back with, we will have to assess what that is. If it is any attack on employment rights or the promotion of TTIP [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership], we will be rejecting that package but we will have to come up with a reform programme as well. Jeremy has not supported withdrawal but has not given Cameron a free pass on it,” he said.
