United Kingdom opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn fired his culture spokesman, Michael Dugher, as he reshuffled his shadow cabinet.
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The Labour leader moved Eagle to shadow culture secretary, mostly because she disagreed with his anti-Trident position.
Mr Corbyn yesterday met with key aides in his Westminster office as he began the process of reshuffling his shadow cabinet.
However, Corbyn made a decision to retain his shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, after coming to an agreement on their future working. “But it’s always sad to lose someone from an ordinary background from the shadow cabinet”.
Michael Dugher, who warned Mr Corbyn not to make Labour a “religious cult”, tweeted this morning: “Just been sacked by Jeremy Corbyn”.
It came as Hilary Benn braced himself for the boot in the shake-up for defying Corbyn when he called for Britain to bomb Syria.
Mr Dugher said he had been removed for speaking out about the systematic “trashing” of the reputations of shadow cabinet colleagues briefed to the media to be in danger from a “revenge reshuffle”.
“In truth I don’t see it happening, and the reason I don’t see it happening is because I think it would be inconsistent with what Jeremy has talked about since he got the leadership”.
And this afternoon Prime Minister David Cameron mocked Jeremy Corbyn for carrying out “the longest reshuffle in history”.
First Minister Mr Jones said: “As somebody who has been a party leader now for six years, and has gone through several reshuffles, I know the fundamental principle of establishing a cabinet is to bring together as much talent as possible, and talent from different viewpoints”.
“Never mind how many Eagles we end up with”, he said in reference to Maria and her twin sister, shadow business secretary Angela Eagle.
Another nine shadow cabinet members voted for air strikes after the leader was forced to allow a free vote – fuelling suggestions he could replace them with left-wing supporters.
Ten members of the Shadow Cabinet paid tribute to Mr Dugher. Eagle also supports the renewal of Trident – something the Labour leader is keen to change the party’s position on – which will be voted on in parliament in the spring.
Labour sources later said Mr Benn’s presence on Labour’s front bench should not be taken as a sign that he had kept his job.
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“I don’t think that works”.
