Sir Keir Starmer has this afternoon finished reshuffling his Shadow Cabinet. The reshuffle sees Sir Keir promote a number of Starmer loyalists such as Bridget Phillipson MP and Baroness Jenny Chapman.
The reshuffle also marks a notable move of the Shadow Cabinet to the right of the political spectrum. It sees Sir Keir either promote or introduce a notable number of figures from the centre or right of the Labour Party into his top team. These include Yvette Cooper, Jonathan Reynolds, Lucy Powell, Wes Steeting, Peter Kyle, and Pat McFadden – himself once political secretary to Tony Blair.
The Shadow Cabinet can now be considered to be firmly to the right of both the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Labour Party membership.
The newly announced team is listed below:
Leader of the Opposition – Keir Starmer
Deputy Leader, Shadow First Secretary of State, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Shadow Secretary of State for the Future of Work – Angela Rayner
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer: Rachel Reeves
Shadow Home Secretary: Yvette Cooper
Shadow Foreign Secretary: David Lammy
Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Industrial Strategy: Jonathan Reynolds
Shadow Secretary of State of Climate Change and Net Zero: Ed Miliband
Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing, Communities & Local Government: Lisa Nandy
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence: John Healey
Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport: Lucy Powell
Shadow Secretary of State for Education: Bridget Phillipson
Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Jim McMahon
Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care: Wes Streeting
Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade: Nick Thomas-Symonds
Shadow Minister of State at the Cabinet Office: Jenny Chapman
Shadow Secretary of State for Justice: Steve Reed
Shadow Secretary of State for Transport: Louise Haigh
Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, Party Chair and Chair of Labour Policy Review: Anneliese Dodds
Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: Jonathan Ashworth
Shadow Attorney General: Emily Thornberry
Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health: Rosena Allin-Khan
Shadow Cabinet Minister for International Development: Preet Gill
Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury: Pat McFadden
Shadow Secretary of State for Wales: Jo Stevens
Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland: Ian Murray
Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland: Peter Kyle
National Campaign Coordinator: Shabana Mahmood
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons: Thangam Debbonaire
Opposition Chief Whip: Alan Campbell
Shadow Leader of the House of Lords: Baroness Angela Smith
Opposition Chief Whip in the House: Lord Roy Kennedy
The reshuffle has seen two leading figures, former shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds, and former shadow Foreign Secretary, Lisa Nandy, demoted to more junior shadow cabinet roles.
There are two big winners from today’s move. The first is former Labour Cabinet Minister, Yvette Cooper, who moves from being Chair of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee to become Shadow Home Secretary. The second is David Lammy, one of just five members of the Shadow Cabinet to have served in the last Labour government, who now becomes Shadow Foreign Secretary.
Ed Miliband has also moved from Shadow Business Secretary to become Shadow Secretary of State of Climate Change and Net Zero, the brief he held in government under Gordon Brown.
Kate Green, Luke Pollard, Nia Griffith, and Lord Falconer have all left the Shadow Cabinet post today’s reshuffle having effectively been sacked by Sir Keir.
Cat Smith has also left the shadow Cabinet expressing her “concerns” about Jeremy Corbyn not being readmitted to the parliamentary party. Previous to her election as an MP in 2015, Smith worked as a researcher for a number of Labour MPs, including Mr Corbyn.
The last shadow cabinet reshuffle came after Labour’s loss at the Hartlepool by-election in May.
Deputy Labour leader, Angela Rayner, said this morning that she was unaware of “the details of any reshuffle, I’ve been concentrating on the job that I’m doing at hand and I think that’s really importance.”
In her speech to the IFG today, she laid out Labour’s plans to overhauls MPs standards, including a ban on ex-ministers taking up lobbying, consultancy or paid employment linked to their former role for a minimum of five years.
