Jeremy Corbyn has appointed an array of new MPs to frontbench Labour jobs as well as handing junior roles to recognisable names such as former shadow cabinet minister Gloria De Piero and Tracy Brabin, who replaced the murdered MP Jo Cox.

Two of Corbyn’s choices who were only elected in June are former MEPs Anneliese Dodds as shadow Treasury minister and Afzal Khan, who becomes shadow Home Office minister. Paul Sweeney, one of Labour’s new MPs in Scotland, becomes shadow Scotland minister.

De Piero, who was shadow minister for women and equalities in Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet but quit as a shadow junior minister before the leadership challenge to Corbyn last summer, has a new role as shadow justice minister.



Brabin, who won Cox’s Batley and Spen seat in a 2016 byelection after the MP was murdered by a far-right attacker, has been made a shadow education minister.

Gloria De Piero has a new role as shadow justice minister. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty

The York MP, Rachael Maskell, who was shadow environment secretary but quit Corbyn’s shadow cabinet to vote against the triggering of article 50, has been given a new junior transport role.

There are also jobs for MPs who are returning to parliament after previously stepping down or losing their seats in 2015.

Chris Williamson, the MP for Derby North who has been one of the Labour leader’s most vocal champions, is made a shadow fire services minister, having won back his seat, which was snatched by the Conservatives in 2015.

Ian Lavery, the Labour party chair, said Williamson’s appointment signalled the death knell of Thatcherism. “He has a reputation as being no fan of neoliberalism and his appointment is a sign that the days of free-market Thatcherism are coming to an end.”

Tony Lloyd, the former Stretford MP who stepped down to become Greater Manchester police and crime commissioner and was later beaten by Andy Burnham for the nomination to be Greater Manchester mayor, has been made a shadow housing minister. He won the seat of Rochdale after Simon Danczuk was deselected.



Chris Ruane and David Drew, who also both regained seats at this election, have junior posts in the shadow Wales and shadow Defra teams respectively. Other MPs in new roles include Melanie Onn, the former shadow deputy leader of the House of Commons, who joins Lloyd as a new shadow housing minister.

In a statement announcing the appointments, Corbyn said the frontbench had a “wealth of talent” from both new and longer-serving MPs.

“Our new shadow ministers will bolster the excellent work of Labour’s shadow cabinet and departmental teams,” he said. “These appointments are further evidence that Labour is not just the opposition – we are the government in waiting.”

However, apart from De Piero’s appointment and the return of his former leadership rival Owen Smith to the shadow cabinet last week in the Northern Ireland post, Corbyn has shown little enthusiasm so far for bringing back any of his critics into plum posts, preferring to reward allies or promote backbenchers.

A number of prominent MPs who served on the shadow frontbench under Miliband and Corbyn before the leadership challenge, including Angela Eagle and Dan Jarvis, had indicated they would be willing to return to the frontbench. None have been appointed in the latest round of jobs.

The party has been broadly united in public since the general election, though shaken over the weekend by Corbyn’s sacking of shadow ministers who defied the party whip to vote in favour of an amendment to the Queen’s speech brought by Chuka Umunna, committing to keeping the UK in the single market after Brexit.

Lavery also angered some MPs by suggesting that the party was “too broad a church” and that the process for MP selection should be reformed. MPs at the party’s weekly meeting of backbenchers on Monday night expressed frustration at the comments. One MP said there was “real anger” among backbenchers who had come back from a gruelling election campaign.

“People are very unhappy,” one former shadow minister said. “It’s divisive and threatening and Corbyn can’t let this stuff go on. I can’t recall anyone in a position of leadership ever saying anything like this.”

Lavery, a former miner who replaced the deputy leader, Tom Watson, as party chair after the election, said he did not have “the divine right to be an MP for Wansbeck … I’ve got to work very hard on behalf of every single member of that constituency. He told the Huffington Post: “Everything is going to be reviewed. That’s the point I am making.”

Labour’s national executive committee will meet for the first time since the election in the next fortnight and one source close to the NEC said they believed Lavery’s comments would be a controversial topic of discussion – particularly on narrowing the spectrum of political views in the party.

“I can’t imagine the NEC being overly pleased with those kinds of comments. If you decide that a party is too broad a church, you have to then announce who you are going to kick out,” the source said. “To narrow the church further, you’re only going to go backwards.”