Normally, a leadership election is followed by the leader appointing a new top team. But that won’t be happening in this case. Instead, a new shadow Cabinet will have to wait for the Labour party to agree a new set of rules on how it should be selected.
The problem is that many of those who resigned from the front bench over Corbyn’s leadership will only return if MPs are allowed to elect a section of the shadow Cabinet; the thinking—as Tristram Hunt writes in this week’s magazine — is that this would allow them ‘to return to work for Corbyn with honour’.
But Corbyn isn’t keen on agreeing to this reduction in his power. The NEC have discussed this for hour and hours in the past few days but to no end.
John McDonnell has now said on Peston on Sunday that there’ll have to be an NEC away day or special rules conference to agree this issue. When asked whether there would be a conference decision on shadow cabinet elections, here’s what he said:
‘Not on an NEC recommendation. Anything can happen from the floor of conference but I don’t think so. The general view is that you need to have a thorough discussion, wrap these all up and come back and have a proper decision.’
This means that the issue won’t be resolved for weeks, or even months. So, there won’t be a full Labour front bench team until then. This means that Labour will continue to fail in its duty to hold the government to account.
Corbyn’s refusal to agree to shadow Cabinet elections also shows that the ‘olive branch’ he is prepared to extend to Labour MPs isn’t that big. He wants peace, but on his terms.
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