Jamie Reed resigns to take job in nuclear industry, saying he will be able to achieve more for his community in Cumbria

One of Jeremy Corbyn’s most persistent critics quit as a Labour MP to take a job in the nuclear industry, triggering a three-way fight for his marginal northern seat with the Conservatives and Ukip.



Jamie Reed, the MP for Copeland in west Cumbria since 2005, told the Guardian he was resigning to work for the nuclear processing site Sellafield.

Explaining why he quit, Reed said: “One of the reasons that I am moving on is because I think there’s a better way of doing that [serving his community] in this community right now than to remain as a member of parliament.”



The outgoing MP has been critical of Labour’s leadership but said his departure had “absolutely nothing to do with Jeremy Corbyn”, with whom he has a cordial relationship.

The resignation creates a critical electoral test for Corbyn and Labour after a poor performance in two recent byelections in Richmond and Sleaford, where the party’s vote was squeezed by pro-Brexit voters going to the Conservatives and pro-EU voters opting for the Liberal Democrats.



On Wednesday night, Corbyn told the Guardian he thought Labour would hold the seat, where Reed had a majority of 2,564 ahead of the Conservatives, with Ukip not too far behind in third.



Asked whether Labour would win in Copeland, Corbyn said: “Yes. We are going to be there campaigning on issues of health, of social care, of broadband, of transport, of housing and all those issues.

“Of course, we are doing economic policy conferences all over the country next year … and this will be a way of saying we need fairer investment and about the ideas people have got in the sort of industries and sustainable projects they want in their areas.

“Jamie has decided to move on. That is his decision, his alone. He has made that decision. That means there is a byelection. He was elected to parliament last year. He’s decided to move on. We move on.”

Corbyn said he had thanked the MP, particularly for his work on rural communities and flood defences. Reed was one of the first to resign from the shadow frontbench after Corbyn was first elected Labour leader and last year accused him of seeking “to inject an unprecedented poison” into the party.



However, Reed said his reasons for going were partly to do with making a difference in Copeland and partly related to his family, as it was “very difficult being a long-distance dad”. It takes six hours to reach Westminster from Copeland, a huge, semi-rural constituency that includes Keswick in the Lake District as well as Whitehaven.

He will take up his new role as head of development and community relations at Sellafield on 1 February. He applied for the job while still an MP and was deemed “an outstanding candidate” by Sellafield’s chief executive, Paul Foster. Reed, who was born and bred in Whitehaven, worked for Sellafield as a press officer before being elected in 2005.

The decision to apply for a job elsewhere is an extraordinary move for a sitting MP, which some Labour backbenchers said indicated a mood of pessimism about the party’s electoral prospects.

Ian Austin, Labour MP for Dudley North, said Reed had made a huge contribution to parliament, but it was “terrible somebody of his talent, commitment and hard work doesn’t see his future in the Labour party in parliament.”

To retain the seat, Labour will have to convince a strongly pro-Brexit electorate to keep backing the party in a constituency where 62% of voters opted to leave the EU.



It will also have to pick a candidate willing to fight a seat due to be carved up in the forthcoming boundary review. Some have already been mooting former politicians who have lost their seats or stood down, such as Ed Balls or even Tony Blair – even though he has denied he is returning to frontline politics. One high-profile name mentioned is Thomas Docherty, one of the Scottish Labour MPs who lost their seats to the SNP at the last election.

A number of Labour MPs have begun setting the bar high, saying it is a seat it should expect to win clearly, despite the Conservatives’ post-Brexit lead in the polls.

John Woodcock, the MP for neighbouring Barrow and Furness, said Labour had held Copeland since the 1930s. “This is a seat that we would expect to win solidly,” he said. “This is an area where the NHS is in dire straits and although I’m very sad about Jamie, I’m really confident we will be able to hold the seat.”

But John Stevenson, the Conservative MP for Carlisle, said his party would fight it vigorously, drawing comparisons to his own seat, which was traditionally Labour and went Conservative in 2010.

“We have got a good message and we have got every chance,” he said. “There was a strong Brexit vote, lots of blue-collar workers, it’s got the nuclear industry and the Conservatives have been very strong on industry and defence and the Labour party much less so.”

In his interview with the Guardian, Reed complained that parliament was suffering from a logjam because of Brexit, with all other key decisions suspended during the negotiating period. “Currently any single issue and every single policy area in Westminster is tangled up in Brexit. All roads lead to Brexit,” he said. “The truth is that for many communities, and communities like this one, there are issues which need to be sorted out and resolved before Brexit can be resolved. We can’t wait forever to get to where we want to be. Certainly that’s true of this part of England anyway.”



Reed said he would not be a “propagandist” for the nuclear industry, but the new job represented an opportunity to help the local economy by ensuring that the impact of the billions of pounds of public money spent at Sellafield annually would be “better felt in this part of the world”.

Jamie Reed (@jreedmp) After 12 years in Parliament, I'm leaving. Hardest decision of my life and a privilege beyond compare. Thank you all. pic.twitter.com/ARhmwK2XJb

He said his new job paid more than his £74,962 MP’s salary “but not by much” – and said money was not a motivator in his decision.

Asked if this was the end of his political career, Reed did not rule out a comeback. “I really don’t know,” he said. “I would very much like to return at a point in the future but that is not within my gift.”

Reed’s children are 13, 11, eight and six, and his wife, who is a teacher, cares for them during the week while he is in London.



“I know that there will be literally hundreds of thousands of people in the same situation I am, working on shifts or oil rigs or tanker drivers or you name it, mothers and fathers, but I’ve always found that difficult,” he said. “The truth is that I’m finding it increasingly difficult. And the decision that I’m making is the hardest one I’ve ever made, but it’s undoubtedly the best thing for me to do for my family.”

Asked if it was possible to be a good father while serving a community so isolated from Westminster, Reed said it was “exceptionally difficult”. His children needed him more as they approached adulthood, he said.