Jeremy Corbyn, the new Labour leader, is facing the first test of his ability to lead the parliamentary party after appointing his closest political ally, John McDonnell, as shadow chancellor.

The decision means that the five most senior positions will be filled by men, including Andy Burnham as shadow home secretary, Hilary Benn as shadow foreign secretary, and Tom Watson as elected deputy as well as Corbyn and McDonnell.

Corbyn’s biggest problem may now be the fierce resistance within the parliamentary party and even among some union leaders to the appointment of McDonnell, with some asking Corbyn to appoint Angela Eagle as shadow chancellor, to balance the shadow cabinet politically and by gender. Eagle was instead given the business portfolio and will also become shadow first secretary of state, deputising for Corbyn in the Commons.

McDonnell was Corbyn’s leadership campaign manager and has advocated nationalisation without compensation in the past as well as 60p tax rates. Among MPs, his appointment was seen as a disavowal of Corbyn’s commitment to create a political consensus.

Charles Clarke, a former home secretary, said on Monday that he was “aghast” at the appointment of McDonnell, and took it as an indication that Corbyn was appointing hard-left allies instead of building a broad shadow cabinet. He told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme that he thought centrist MPs would probably begin to form their own shadow Treasury policy within the party.

Gisela Stuart, a Labour MP who sits on the intelligence and security committee, told the same programme that Corbyn was “not taking the party to 2020” and the Labour party needed to debate what it stood for, which would create conflict.

Another brewing political row in the party is over its Europe policy, as former shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna said he was leaving the frontbench by mutual agreement because he could not secure an unambiguous promise from Corbyn to campaign for the UK to stay in the EU.

However, Benn, the new shadow foreign secretary, insisted he knew that Corbyn would campaign for Britain to fight to stay in the EU “under all circumstances”.

Corbyn’s first challenge in the House of Commons on Monday will be Labour’s response to the trade union bill, led by Eagle, which the whole party strongly opposes so he is unlikely to see any defiance of the whip.

In further appointments, Diane Abbott was made shadow secretary of state for international development, Seema Malhotra will be shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, and Heidi Alexander, a relatively new MP, is the new shadow health secretary.

Alexander, a former whip, has helped establish the “Red Shift” group set up in the wake of the election defeat, calling for the party to show that it understood that “money did not grow on trees”.

The existing shadow justice secretary, Lord Falconer, an ally of Burnham and one-time Blairite, will remain shadow lord chancellor.

The lack of high-profile jobs for women went down badly with many. The Labour MP for Hull North, Diana Johnson, tweeted:

It is so very disappointing - old fashioned male dominated Labour politics in the top positions in Shadow Cabinet #notforgirls — Diana Johnson (@DianaJohnsonMP) September 13, 2015

Both Harriet Harman as deputy leader and Yvette Cooper as shadow home secretary have stood down. Cooper will head a taskforce examining the refugee crisis.

Benn defended the appointments, saying it was “old-fashioned” to view the biggest jobs as leader, chancellor, home secretary and foreign secretary. He said shadow international development, handed to Abbott, was also extremely important, especially given the refugee crisis.

Watson, elected deputy leader on Saturday, said on Sunday that he thought Labour must support remaining in Europe and stressed that he supported a renewal of the Trident nuclear submarine system, a position Corbyn has rejected for a decade and had made a centrepiece of his triumphant leadership campaign.

After a day – and night – at Westminster huddled with advisers, including the reappointed shadow chief whip, Rosie Winterton, Corbyn faced a slow drip of ministerial resignations and then, late in the evening, moved to stabilise the parliamentary party by making a series of appointments. Alongside Corbyn and Watson’s own election, the quintet now at the top of the party is entirely male.

McDonnell, an hour before the announcement of his new position wa made, shared a platform with Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, at a TUC fringe meeting. He defended the appointments that were soon to be declared.



“I am hoping that within the hour we will have a shadow cabinet put together. As you know, that has been slightly more challenging than the traditional shadow cabinet. It will be as broad-based as we could possibly make it and as inclusive as possible,” he said.

McDonnell, the former head of finance at the GLC under Ken Livingstone, quipped that some people were already trying to compare him to Varoufakis because of his anti-austerity views: “Someone said to me ‘are you going to be Britain’s Yanis Varoufakis?’ And I said, ‘I could never be that cool,’” he said, to laughter from a supportive audience.

Regarding the trade union bill, which will go before the Commons on Monday, McDonnell said he and Corbyn would “expect” Labour MPs to vote against it during its second reading in parliament and would convene a conference for those who oppose austerity across Europe.

He refused to say whether a Corbyn-McDonnell administration would support or reject withdrawal from the EU.

“Jeremy has made it clear is that what we should be working with parties across Europe for is a reform package across Europe itself. Whatever [David] Cameron comes back with, we will have to assess what that is. If it is any attack on employment rights or the promotion of TTIP [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership], we will be rejecting that package but we will have to come up with a reform programme as well. Jeremy has not supported withdrawal but has not given Cameron a free pass on it,” he said.



