‘Licence to kill’ row sees last Corbynite quit Keir’s cabinet
THE hard-left exodus from Sir Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet continued last night with the resignation of a string of Corbynite MPs.
In the morning, Dan Carden quit as shadow financial secretary to the Treasury so he could defy his party leadership by voting against a ‘spy cops’ bill.
Later on he was followed by five more Jeremy Corbyn supporters: Margaret Greenwood, Navendu Mishra, Rachel Hopkins, Sarah Owen, Mary Foy and Kim Johnson.
In his resignation letter, Mr Carden said the Government’s Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill sets ‘dangerous new precedents’. It gives broad legal rights to undercover agents to commit crimes during their work, and Sir Keir had told his MPs to abstain.
It means there are now no Jeremy Corbyn cheerleaders in the full shadow cabinet. Rebecca Long-Bailey was sacked in June after retweeting an article containing an anti-Semitic message, and Lloyd Russell-Moyle quit a few weeks later after being told to apologise over a comment he made about JK Rowling. Then last month three junior aides – Olivia Blake, Nadia Whittome and Beth Winter – had to resign after voting against the party whip.
Mr Carden wrote to Sir Keir: ‘I must use my voice and my vote ... to object to legislation that sets dangerous new precedents on the rule of law and civil liberties...’
A total of 34 Labour MPs defied Sir Keir’s order to abstain, including Mr Corbyn and former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott.