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“BACKSTABBING” Blairites were told yesterday to stop squabbling over Jeremy Corbyn’s reshuffle and start taking the fight to the Tories.
Straight-talking shadow Treasury minister Richard Burgon said a minority of troublemaking Labour MPs were addicted to “Westminster bubble theatrics.”
But he told them that the public was not interested in the party’s “soap opera” and wanted to see Labour hold the government to account on housing, flooding and cuts.
“I’m fed up with the infighting from a minority of Labour MPs who seem to be putting internal Labour Party squabbles before taking the fight to the Tories,” Mr Burgon said.
“The responsibility of MPs and the media is to talk about the real issues which affect people out there.
“I don’t think Labour voters are going to be losing sleep over rows between junior ministers or a resignation live on the BBC Politics Show. People don’t come to my constituency surgery about that.
“So let’s talk about ideas, let’s talk about real politics, not personalities and the Westminster soap opera.”
Mr Burgon spoke out as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn brought a four-day reshuffle to an end by appointing five new shadow junior ministers.
Some of the changes were forced upon him after Jonathan Reynolds, Stephen Doughty and Kevan Jones quit the front bench in protest at the sacking of Pat McFadden as shadow Europe minister.
The fallout escalated on Wednesday night as Labour MPs traded insults online.
After Diane Abbott told Newsnight that the “former special advisers” were no great loss, Mr Reynolds hit back by saying: “I think you’re a total sell-out for sending your own kids to private school.”
Labour national executive member Ken Livingstone defended Ms Abbott yesterday, saying she was responding to a “wave of backstabbing by a disaffected little group of old uber-Blairites.
“All that these people are doing is allowing the Tory press to go on endlessly about these conflicts within the Labour Party rather than focusing on the economic alternative that John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn are proposing.”
WHO’S NEW IN THE SHADOW CABINET?
Jo Stevens - Prisons
Angela Rayner - Work and Pensions
Jenny Chapman - Education
Kate Hollern - Defence
Fabian Hamilton - Foreign Affairs
