Jeremy Corbyn defends reshuffle and pledges to hold Tories to account

Jeremy Corbyn has defended the reshuffle, which took place earlier this week, and pledged to hold David Cameron’s government to account.

In this morning’s Observer, the Labour leader has penned a column in which he defends his shadow cabinet reshuffle against the media ‘sound and fury’ as making the party’s top team as “stronger, more diverse and more coherent”.

The reshuffle, which began on Monday and began to be wound up on Wednesday, saw Michael Dugher and Pat McFadden lose their shadow ministerial jobs. Corbyn also moved Maria Eagle from shadow defence to shadow culture replacing her with Emily Thornberry. Corbyn’s decision to fire McFadden prompted three junior shadow ministers to resign from their positions.

In a call to unite the party, Corbyn said the Tories are “systematically” undermining democracy through changes to voter registration, attacking trade unions and cutting Short money and that Labour party must hold them to account. The Labour leader pledged that the party will focus on the Government’s failings.

“We will hold Cameron’s government to account: on its self-defeating austerity; its redistribution to the wealthiest; its deliberate stoking of house price inflation, which is fuelling the housing shortage; its threat to the NHS, social care and education; its attack on rights at work; its failure to invest in everything from flood defences and the arts to manufacturing and green infrastructure”, he has written.

Corbyn also argued Labour will offer “a real alternative” based on three pillars of his leadership: 1) the “new politics”, that will give people a say in “the decisions that affect them”, 2) “a new economy that puts public investment front and centre stage” and 3) a different form of foreign policy, where war is a “last resort”.

The Labour leader recognised that the party has “an electoral mountain to climb”. Laying out the party’s focus over the next four years, he said Labour must focus “everything” on the “needs and aspirations of middle- and lower-income voters” to win in 2020.