Isabel Hardman

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.

David Cameron’s admission on the Marr Show this morning that the EU referendum might take place either a little later in 2016 than most expected or indeed in 2017 isn’t what has exercised eurosceptics. From their point of view, a later referendum will give them more time to set out their arguments for a change from the status quo. But what has annoyed them is the Prime Minister’s suggestion that the government was not drawing up contingency plans for Britain voting to leave the European Union. Marr asked him whether the government was prepared for the possibility of leaving the EU. Cameron replied: ‘I don't think that is the right answer, for the reasons I've given, but were that to be the answer we would have to do everything necessary to make that work.

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.

Could David Cameron have to delay his European renegotiation still further? In his press conference today with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the Tory leader said that ‘if it takes longer to make an agreement then obviously what matters to me is the substance rather than the timing’. Cameron and his senior colleagues had been confident of reaching an agreement on Britain’s new relationship with Europe at February’s European Council summit, but it may be that it is not finally signed off before the March meeting of EU leaders. This would push the referendum back to at least July, which is a difficult month because of Scottish school holidays.

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.

In his statement to the Commons this afternoon, David Cameron confirmed that ministers will be free to campaign for Britain to leave the European Union - and he gave a hint about when the referendum might be, too. The Prime Minister told the Chamber that he couldn’t guarantee agreement at February’s European Council summit, but: ‘If [agreement] is possible, the I’m keen to get on and hold a referendum. We shouldn’t do it precipitately, I’ve looked at previous precedents, I note that when Labour held a referendum in 1975, there was only a month between the completion of the legislation and the referendum. I don’t think that’s enough.