Corbyn’s top role for ex-lover Diane – and MP who beat husband gets equality job!

JEREMY Corbyn last night promoted his former lover Diane Abbott to shadow home secretary – days after she sparked outrage by suggesting many Brexit voters were motivated by racism.

The Labour leader, who saw off a challenge by moderates last month, took revenge last night in a major shake-up that sees key roles handed to his hard-Left allies.

And Sarah Champion was promoted from domestic violence spokesman to become shadow women and equalities minister despite having a police caution for attacking her husband during their ‘very acrimonious’ divorce.

Her promotion also came although she branded Mr Corbyn’s leadership ‘untenable’ in June, when she joined a mass walkout by frontbenchers.

Human rights lawyer Shami Chakrabarti, who was accused of presiding over a whitewash during an investigation into antiSemitism in the Labour Party, was made shadow attorney general.

The former director of human rights group Liberty has been forced to deny claims she soft-pedalled on Labour’s anti-Semitism problem in return for a peerage from Mr Corbyn and a place in his top team.

Meanwhile, Labour moderate Rosie Winterton was sacked as chief whip, in a move that was expected to prompt a mass walkout from the whips office.

And former director of public prosecutions Sir Keir Starmer was appointed shadow Brexit secretary, meaning that four members of Mr Corbyn’s top team now come from neighbouring constituencies in fashionable North London.

Last night, Mr Corbyn was also said to be in talks with Gordon Brown’s disgraced former spin doctor Damian McBride, and former leader Ed Miliband, about returning to senior roles.

Mr Corbyn had pledged to ‘reach out’ to moderates in the party after crushing leadership rival Owen Smith last month.

But, Miss Champion aside, there were no signs of a recall for the 65 Labour moderates who walked out in the summer in protest at Mr Corbyn’s hard-Left agenda and incompetent leadership.

Instead, the early appointments to his Shadow Cabinet suggest he will use the reshuffle to tighten his grip on the party.

Last night Clive Lewis was shifted from his role as shadow defence secretary following a conference row last week over Mr Corbyn’s outspoken opposition to Britain’s nuclear deterrent. He is shunted sideways to be shadow business secretary.

In his place comes the antinuclear MP Nia Griffith.

The appointment of Miss Abbott follows the decision of former Labour Cabinet minister Andy Burnham to quit in order to seek election as mayor of Manchester.

Miss Abbott, who last year said it was ‘shameful’ to propose any controls on immigration, now takes charge of Labour’s policy on the vital issue. She has been one of Mr Corbyn’s closest allies for decades. The pair had a relationship in the 1970s and even enjoyed a romantic motorbike tour of East Germany, which was then ruled by a notorious communist regime.

She has regularly courted controversy since becoming Britain’s first black female MP in 1987. At Labour’s conference in Liverpool last week she sparked anger by suggesting that many of the 17million people who voted to leave the EU were motivated by racism.

Speaking at a fringe meeting, she said: ‘The people that complain about the freedom of movement will not be satisfied because what they really want is to see less foreign looking people on their streets.’

She added: ‘The Brexit vote, whatever you think of that vote, has added another turn of the screw to rising racism.’

Labour’s domestic violence chief ‘must quit’ over attack on husband From the Mail, September 26