JEREMY Corbyn has given the key task of co-ordinating Labour’s push for power to two MPs as he completed his frontline reshuffle in wake of the raft of resignations over the Brexit Bill.
The little-known Ian Lavery and Andrew Gwynne have been appointed joint national elections and campaign co-ordinators, replacing Corbyn loyalist Jon Trickett, who becomes Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office.
The appointment of Messrs Lavery and Gwynne comes less than a fortnight before two crunch by-election battles in Copeland and Stoke-on-Trent Central, where Labour is defending seats against challenges from the Conservatives and Ukip.
Plus, the two new election chiefs will also face the prospect of local elections north and south of the border in May.
It was suggested that Mr Trickett was said by friends to be very upset that his sideways move had been leaked before he was formally told about it.
A source close to the party leader made clear: "Any suggestion of sacking or demotion is wrong. Jon remains and will remain a key part of the core team.”
But another insider said: “He's being demoted because they were fed up with his uselessness."
Mr Lavery, who represents Wansbeck in Northumberland, is firmly on the left of the party. A former miner, he was arrested several times during the miners’ strike of the 1980s. He rose through the ranks and succeeded Arthur Scargill as President of the National Union of Mineworkers before entering Parliament in 2010.
Mr Gwynne is the MP for Denton and Reddish in Greater Manchester. In the mid-1990s aged 21, he became the youngest councillor in England and when elected to Parliament aged 30 was Labour’s youngest MP among the 2005 intake. In December 2015, the backbencher ran the Oldham West and Royton by-election, helping Jim McMahon notch up a convincing victory.
It was still unclear by yesterday evening if Mr Corbyn would discipline more than a dozen rebels who have junior frontbench roles and who voted against the whip in this week’s Brexit Bill.
While the matter is being left up to Nick Brown, the Chief Whip, it is thought the leader, given the gaps on the frontbench, can ill afford to create even more and so will take either minimal or no action against those who defied him.
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