Alan Johnson, the former Labour home secretary, has insisted that Jeremy Corbyn is not up to being opposition leader, as the party enters fresh infighting after a shadow cabinet shakeup.

Johnson’s damning assessment came as the chairman of the parliamentary party, John Cryer, condemned Corbyn’s changes to his senior team.



Corbyn retains closest allies in senior shadow cabinet roles in reshuffle Read more

When it was put to Johnson by the BBC that he believed Corbyn was not up to the job of being leader, he said: “Me and many of my colleagues. Perhaps he’ll prove me wrong.”

As the backlash against Corbyn’s reshuffle intensified, Cryer complained that he and the sacked chief whip Rosie Winterton had been kept in the dark about the move, despite having held talks with the leadership about having some of the shadow cabinet posts elected by MPs.

The shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, defended Corbyn, saying it was wrong to criticise him for being too decisive and insisting the issue of elected posts was still on the table.



“It’s not a question of ‘forget all that’. There are negotiations going on. There’s an NEC [national executive committee] away day in which this issue is going to be discussed as part of a larger package in terms of making sure that the party is more democratic, and these negotiations are ongoing. What do you want?” she said on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Saturday.



“The problem is that, on the one hand people criticise, and have been criticising, Jeremy for being weak, for taking too long on his reshuffles, taking a couple of days, and yet when when he decides that he will do a reshuffle that he needs to do in order to fill vacancies and in order to reach out, people then criticise him for being too decisive and too strong.”



Thornberry dismissed criticism that the top four positions in the shadow cabinet were held by north London MPs.



“Half of the shadow cabinet come from the Midlands and the north. What is your problem?” she said.

Cryer set out his concerns over the reshuffle in a letter to MPs.



“Rosie and I were keen to continue these negotiations this week and tried to arrange meetings with the leader’s office to come to an agreement as soon as possible,” he wrote.

“However, it became clear on Wednesday that a reshuffle was under way, which had not been discussed or mentioned. It now seems to me that the party’s leadership did not engage in the talks in any constructive way. Obviously, I deeply regret this turn of events.”



Winterton’s sacking, and the elevation of Diane Abbott, a key Corbyn ally, to shadow home secretary, provoked anger among moderate MPs in what some described as a “revenge reshuffle”.

Jon Ashworth, one of the few remaining moderates in the shadow cabinet, was promoted to shadow health secretary, but lost his place on the NEC to a Corbyn loyalist, which could tip the finely balanced body in the leadership’s favour as it decides on whether to have elected posts.

Only a handful of the 63 people who quit the shadow cabinet in the summer returned to the fold, but more may take the remaining junior posts yet to be announced.

Although critical of the leader, Johnson said Corbyn needed “time and space” to do his job.