New Times,
New Thinking.

  1. Politics
9 February 2017updated 10 Feb 2017 5:47pm

Jeremy Corbyn promotes fresh faces in swift reshuffle

The Labour leader has refreshed his top team. 

By Stephen Bush

Jeremy Corbyn has reshuffled the shadow cabinet to replace those MPs who quit in order to vote against triggering Article 50, with all the vacant posts going to MPs from the 2015 intake. Rebecca Long-Bailey moves from shadow chief secretary to the Treasury to business, energy and industrial strategy. Peter Dowd, MP for Bootle, goes straight from the backbenches to the role of shadow chief secretary.

Although Dowd supported Andy Burnham in 2015, he joined Jeremy Corbyn in voting against the Welfare Bill that summer – Labour MPs had been instructed to abstain. Sue Hayman, also elected for the first time in 2015, whose constituency neighbours that of Copeland, where Labour faces a tricky fight to hold the constituency, goes to shadow environment and rural affairs, vacated by Rachel Maskell, who quit to vote against triggering Article 50. Christina Rees, MP for Neath, replaces Jo Stevens as Secretary of State for Wales. 

Content from our partners
The future of exams
Skills are the key to economic growth
Skills Transition is investing in UK skills and jobs

Subscribe to The New Statesman today for only £1 per week