Labour party

No amount of reports in the press that Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet-making is farcical and his party is divided should distract us from the fact that he is winning. I don’t mean that he will become prime minister, or even (though this seems quite possible) that he will survive as leader until the general election. It is just that he is gradually bringing more and more of Labour under his control, and grinding down his opponents. Besides, his public positions are coherent — in the sense of being internally consistent — and he is quite accomplished at adhering to an undeviatingly hardline, left-wing ideology while sounding mild and decent.

‘Thy choicest gifts in store / On her be pleased to pour.’ The prospect is upon Twickenham and Wembley regulars of the end of that second tricky verse. This week, Labour MPs packed into the Commons Chamber to support Toby Perkins’s English National Anthem Bill, which proposes replacing ‘God Save the Queen’ with an English anthem at English sporting events. Given that Wales has ‘Land of my Fathers’ and North Britain (sic) ‘Flower of Scotland’, then why not, say, Blake and Parry’s ‘Jerusalem’ for the English? The Express and the Mail say we shouldn’t be ‘rude’ to the Queen, but the modern elision of monarchy and nation is a relative novelty.

Have Labour MPs who oppose Jeremy Corbyn just given up? Given many of them have chosen to stay on the frontbench after the reshuffle in which the Labour leader made clear that it was his way or the highway, and also that he does want to change party policy on Trident after all, it looks as though many have just resigned themselves to a miserable few years in which they struggle to mount any meaningful resistance to the Labour leader. It’s certainly true that Corbyn’s opponents don’t have a clear plan for removing him. Some of them have concluded that the best option is for the unions to turn against him, joining the parliamentary Labour party in their opposition.

Labour’s reshuffle isn’t, as some foolishly alleged, over. It may never end, as frontbenchers decide to resign over the internal warfare in the party. This morning Catherine McKinnell, who was Shadow Attorney General, has resigned, citing family reasons, the struggle to balance frontbench and constituency life, and ‘the situation in which the Labour Party now finds itself’, which the Newcastle North MP says has ‘amplified’ the first two issues. She writes: ‘However, as events have unfolded over recent weeks, my concerns about the direction and internal conflict within the Labour Party have only grown, and I fear this is taking us down an increasingly negative path.

Oh dear. It's safe to say that last week was not a great week for Jeremy Corbyn after the Labour leader found members of his party on the verge of revolt following his so-called 'revenge reshuffle'. His decision to sack members of his Shadow Cabinet led to resignations from Shadow Ministers as party members criticised his decision to move Emily Thornberry -- who is anti-Trident -- into the role of Shadow Defence Secretary. However despite this the Labour leader appears to be on fighting form.

The Labour party has this evening complained about the BBC arranging for Stephen Doughty to announce his resignation on the Daily Politics. A spokesperson for Jeremy Corbyn said: 'By the BBC's own account, BBC journalists and presenters proposed and secured the resignation of a shadow minister on air in the immediate run-up to Prime Minister's Questions, apparently to ensure maximum news and political impact. That was evidently done before any notice of resignation was sent to the Labour leader. 'Such orchestration of political controversy is an unacceptable breach of the BBC's role and statutory obligations 'Trust in the impartiality and independence of the BBC is essential.

It's safe to say this week hasn't been the best for Labour. As well as a never-ending reshuffle saga, Corbyn was accused of 'low-level non-violent misogyny' over the lack of women in the top roles in his Shadow Cabinet by Labour MP Jess Phillips. So with the cabinet officially reshuffled, brains at Labour HQ decided it was time for a very special announcement: they had increased the number of women in their Shadow Cabinet by one! A press release entitled 'NEWS FROM LABOUR: Following the reshuffle women now occupy 17 out of the 31 shadow cabinet positions' was sent around which included the number of women in both the shadow cabinet and the ministerial teams.

According to John McDonnell, the reason three Labour frontbenchers resigned today is that there is a ‘group within the Labour party who have a right-wing conservative agenda. Within Progress itself, there are some who are quite hard right, and I think they’ve never accepted Jeremy’s leadership’. McDonnell told Channel 4 News that these ‘hard right’ MPs were still welcome in the Labour party because it is a ‘broad church’, but it was clear that he wants to paint Progress, largely a Blairite campaign group, as a menace. Certainly Progress has a different approach to left-wing politics than McDonnell. And it’s not supportive of the current Labour leadership.