On Wednesday night he reacted angrily to claims by fellow Labour MP Diane Abbott on Newsnight that he, along other Labour MPs who had resigned from the frontbench, was a “career politician” who simply wasn’t used to Jeremy Corbyn’s new style of leadership.
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Reynolds and Doughty stepped down from their roles after Pat McFadden was removed as shadow Europe minister for “serial disloyalty”, including what was seen as a coded attack on Corbyn’s response to the Paris terror attacks.
Ms Thornberry, who shares Mr Corbyn’s opposition to renewing the Trident nuclear deterrent, replaced Maria Eagle, who takes the opposite view.
The British opposition leader has reshuffled his shadow cabinet as part of efforts to tighten control over some rebellious members.
The changes he made see anti-Trident MP Emily Thornberry replacing shadow defence secretary Maria Eagle, who moves to culture to replace sacked Michael Dugher.
The most poisonous sledging between Mr Corbyn’s supporters and his opponents was over the sacking of Pat McFadden from his job as Europe spokesman for what the leadership claimed was “serial disloyalty”.
Mr Dugher had warned against a “revenge reshuffle” earlier in the month, saying the leader must remember the “Labour party is a broad church, not a religious cult”.
A senior Labour source said Mr Corbyn had reached an “agreement” with Mr Benn that there could be no repeat of the situation over Syria airstrikes, when they set out opposing views from the despatch box in the House of Commons.
He said: “We have had a few junior members resign today and of course that’s their right but they do all come from a sort of a narrow right-wing clique within the Labour party based around the organisation Progress, largely”.
McDonnell said that Corbyn was trying to “hold everyone together” while being “very clear about our direction of travel in terms of policy”.
“I am looking forward to working with my colleagues in the Labour Party holding the Government to account, but more importantly having an input into Labour’s offer for local government”.
The Labour leader also admitted he signed off the final details of the reshuffle by text while standing on a train platform.
Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn retained his post, but reportedly only after he agreed to muzzle himself over policy differences with the Labour leader.
Mr McDonnell said that though the National Policy Forum feeding into the Party Conference decides policy under Labour rules, he hoped that the party’s National Executive Committee “on this issue will decide whether that process will appertain to the decision on Trident or whether or not there will be a new consultative process … they haven’t made their mind up on that”.
Armed Forces spokesman Kevan Jones said he disagreed with Corbyn on scrapping Britain’s nuclear weapons and would make a more effective case for Labour to have “strong, credible defence and security policies” from the backbenches.
Mr Benn was the Hashim Amla – the South African captain who batted obdurately for two days – of the shadow cabinet, digging in and refusing to budge.
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“But don’t underestimate the determination of the Labour Party to achieve on housing, achieve on social justice, achieve on a developing economy, achieve on manufacturing”.
