Jeremy Corbyn urged to let MPs vote on shadow cabinet

'Pull together': Jeremy Corbyn was told a vote could help gear his party up for a general election
Jane Barlow/PA
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Jeremy Corbyn was today urged by a veteran Left-winger to make peace with Labour MPs by letting them vote on who serves in his shadow cabinet.

The call came from Ann Clwyd MP, who was twice sacked from Labour’s front bench but clawed her way back in the old annual elections for places on the front-bench team.

“I just hope everybody will pull together to gear the party up for fighting a general election,” urged Ms Clwyd, who also served as chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

“After I was sacked by Neil Kinnock, I was elected back to the shadow cabinet.

"I just think colleagues are in a better position to judge who makes a better member of the shadow cabinet team, because they watch everybody’s performance in the House so closely.”

Mr Corbyn issued a defiant message before the talks, scheduled for tomorrow, with the current PLP chair John Cryer and chief whip Rosie Winterton.

“We owe it to the millions of people Labour exists to represent to end the sniping and personal attacks, and work together for all those who depend on the election of a Labour government,” said Mr Corbyn.

“Anything else would be destructive and self-indulgent.”

The talks follow deadlock over a call by deputy leader Tom Watson to bring back the old system where the shadow cabinet membership was chosen each autumn by a ballot of MPs.

Mr Corbyn says he would only have elections if the grass-roots members had a say.

Ms Clwyd was fired as shadow education minister by Mr Kinnock after abstaining on a key vote on further spending on nuclear weapons in 1988.

But she won a place again in subsequent shadow cabinet elections as spokesman for Wales.

The 79-year-old later became close to Tony Blair and backed the invasion of Iraq.

Mr Corbyn is expected to win a renewed mandate as leader in the leadership ballot, with the result to be revealed on Saturday.

Labour staff have been sent an unprecedented warning that there could be trouble at the Liverpool conference and issued with an emergency hotline to call for help.

A note says they could face physical or verbal assault and may be harassed by angry activists.

“We know some of you have concerns over facing aggressive or potentially violent behaviour and we wanted to inform you of what to do if you feel anyone is acting in this manner towards you,” said the memo.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in