Shadow Brexit secretary said to be ‘furious’ at speech urging Britain to ‘embrace the enormous opportunities’ of leaving EU

The carefully brokered truce within Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet is at risk of blowing apart, with the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, said to be “furious” at John McDonnell’s description of leaving the European Union as an “enormous opportunity”.



Starmer, whose new role was one of the most high-profile appointments when Corbyn restocked his team after the mass resignations of the summer, has been fighting a battle with the leader’s office over how much Short money – the taxpayer funding for opposition parties – he would receive.

He has just one full-time adviser, and Labour has advertised for another, whom he will have to share with the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry. Other shadow cabinet members have three or four. One frontbencher working on Brexit said the lack of resources “needs to be addressed”.

Allies of Corbyn have told the Guardian Starmer is being “man marked”, because they are nervous he may use the prominent post as a platform for a future leadership bid – and is too willing to cede to pressure from some Labour MPs to accept limits on immigration. On one recent EU trip, he was accompanied by Thornberry and Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary.

How to tackle voters’ concerns about the free movement of people has become an increasingly fraught issue within the party since the EU referendum, with some backbenchers, including Emma Reynolds, Stephen Kinnock and Rachel Reeves, suggesting the party should back tougher controls.

But Corbyn, Abbott, and the shadow business secretary, Clive Lewis, are keener to stand up for the benefits of immigration — though Lewis has suggested foreign workers could be forced to join a trade union before they can take up a post in Britain.

Labour’s policy on Brexit is discussed at fortnightly meetings of a “Brexit subcommittee”, chaired by Corbyn, with Starmer, Thornberry and Abbott present.

But McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, reportedly went far beyond the agreed line – and shocked some Labour MPs, including Starmer – when he used his pre-autumn statement speech in London on Tuesday to urge the party to seize on the opportunities opened up by Britain’s exit from the EU. One source described the shadow Brexit secretary as “absolutely furious” about McDonnell’s intervention.

McDonnell said in his speech: “Labour accepts the referendum result as the voice of the majority and we must embrace the enormous opportunities to reshape our country that Brexit has opened for us.

“In that way we can speak again to those who were left behind and offer a positive, ambitious vision instead of leaving the field open to divisive Trump-style politics.”

A spokesman for McDonnell said the general thrust of the speech had been agreed beforehand.

Hostilities between the warring factions in the parliamentary Labour party have cooled since Corbyn convincingly defeated the summer leadership challenge from Owen Smith. The Labour leader was praised at Westminster for his robust performance against Theresa May at this week’s prime minister’s questions, when he accused her government of being in a “total shambles” over Brexit.

But some centrist Labour MPs, particularly those in northern heartland seats where Ukip polled strongly in 2015, are anxious about how they would fare if May were forced into an early general election.

A Labour spokesperson said: “Only a Labour government can make an economic success of Brexit, and we will continue to set out Labour’s positive vision for our future relationship with the EU, unlike the negative and chaotic vision being offered by the Tories. John and Keir work closely together unlike Philip Hammond and his cabinet colleagues.”

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats have tried to position themselves as the champions of the 48% of voters who rejected Brexit, and polling published by YouGov on Thursday suggested they could boost their share of the vote at a general election by promising a second referendum.

YouGov polling carried out earlier this month suggested that if Labour backed Brexit and the Lib Dems promised a second vote on leaving the EU, Labour’s share of the vote could fall to 19%, with the Lib Dems jumping to 22%.

Brexit is an issue that cuts across a series of other key policy areas, including international trade, foreign policy and the economy, and has caused turf wars within the cabinet, as well as among Labour frontbenchers.