Corbyn critic Jess lands key Labour role

PROMINENT Corbyn critic Jess Phillips was given a key position on Labour’s frontbench yesterday as Keir Starmer brought yet more moderates into the fold.

The MP for Birmingham Yardley, who stood for the party leadership, becomes spokesman for domestic violence.

Many of the moderates in the party’s top team were on the backbenches during the Corbyn years. Wes Streeting, the MP who led the fight against anti-Semitism in the party, is made shadow exchequer secretary in the Treasury team.

Liz Kendall, the Blairite MP who lost to Jeremy Corbyn when she stood for the leadership in 2015, becomes social care spokesman. And Stephen Kinnock, son of former Labour leader Neil, has been given a foreign affairs position.

Sir Keir also made his deputy Angela Rayner the shadow first secretary of state, meaning she will deputise for him at Prime Minister’s Questions.

He said: ‘This is a new team that will take the Labour Party forward in a new era. Under my leadership, the party will be utterly focused on working in the national interest, rebuilding people’s trust in our party and winning the next election.’

Only a small number of hardcore Corbynites have been given jobs in the new team. They include Dan Carden, who formerly had the international development brief, and Lloyd Russell-Moyle.

The reshuffle will further worry Momentum, the grassroots group which propped up Mr Corbyn’s leadership. Earlier this week it called on factions on the left to unite to stop Labour being ‘taken over once more by centrists’.