Labour complains about shadow minister’s resignation on BBC

The Labour leadership has said it is an outdated view to see those four roles as the most important over portfolios such as health and education.

The Wirral South MP has been infuriated by shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s jibe that the Progress group – which she chairs – is “hard right”.

Kate Green, shadow women and equalities minister, said it showed Corbyn’s Labour party was “again ahead of the curve, with women now making up 55% of the top team compared to just 33% for the Tories”.

Appearing on the Sunday edition of the programme, McGovern, a former shadow Treasury minister, will explain her decision to quit.

Pat McFadden and Michael Dugher were sacked for alleged “disloyalty”, while Kevan Jones, Jonathan Reynolds and Stephen Doughty resigned in response.

A source close to Mr Corbyn said all possibilities would be considered by the review and no outcome had been decided.

“This view of the world seems to separate the world into adults and children, and the adults are the West and the others – the children – are anti-West”, he said.

A defence review being co-chaired by Ms Thornberry and Ken Livingstone, the former London mayor and key Corbyn ally, is also likely to propose the party opposes renewal of Trident.

The Barnsley Central MP, an ex-soldier who has been tipped as a future leader, said he would feel “deeply uncomfortable” fighting on such a platform.

Mr Livingstone dismissed the jibe from Mr Dugher, insisting: “What he’s really bitter about is when I said look Tony Blair was told by security services if you invade Iraq it will make us a target for terrorism”. But it also means that a force increasingly sceptical of Western defence and security policy has taken hold at the heart of British politics at a time when such matters are newly sensitive.

Mr Jones said the “incompetence” of the protracted reshuffle was “very frustrating”.

He said: “At last the leadership of our party is looking at its resources and people, and who is experienced”. He argues that new rules on voter registration, attempts to cut the number of parliamentary seats and slash funding for Labour amount to an unprecedented attack on democratic rights and freedoms. She was promoted in the leader’s shadow cabinet reshuffle this week.

The life-long anti-Trident campaigner will be working alongside fellow Leeds MP Hilary Benn as a junior shadow foreign office minister following the Labour leader’s drawn-out reorganisation of his team. “But I think any politician who comes into this to want to try and change the world for the better…”

Mr Corbyn also highlighted his commitment to improving rail links in the North of England, saying: “I do take very seriously the issues of infrastructure improvements and developments in this country”.