Even when Britain has just voted to leave the European Union, Commons business must go on. And so this afternoon the first item on the agenda in the Chamber was not the statement from the Prime Minister on Brexit and his own resignation, but Defence questions.
This should have been awkward for the Government, which is in chaos at the moment. But instead it was awkward for Labour, whose newly-appointed Shadow Defence Secretary Clive Lewis was unable to get back to Westminster from the Glastonbury Festival in time. Despite kind offers to help from supportive friends of Jeremy Corbyn, Emily Thornberry stepped into the breach instead, telling the Chamber that this was her last questions before moving on. This did not stop Labour being openly mocked and loudly laughed at in the Chamber for having such an unprofessional outfit.
It was striking, though, that the Labour benches behind that disorganised frontbench operation were so packed, and that backbenchers had come armed with questions about the consequences of the Brexit vote and procurement programmes. The party has long had a shadow shadow frontbench operation run by MPs worried that their official shadow ministers are unable to hold the government to account effectively. But these operations will become even more important as inexperienced teams take over following the barrage of resignations from Jeremy Corbyn’s team. The problem is that many of the members of those shadow shadow teams have fundamental differences with their official shadow teams. On defence, for instance, many Labour backbenchers are opposed to a change of policy on Trident renewal, whereas the frontbench teams have been chosen specifically for their opposition to nuclear submarines. This will always make it more difficult to put the government on the spot.
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