Is Owen Smith’s sacking an attempt to distract from Labour’s anti-Semitism row?

In the past few minutes, Owen Smith has been sacked from Labour’s Shadow Cabinet after he wrote an article calling for a second referendum and continuing single market membership.

The party this evening released a statement from Jeremy Corbyn which did not thank Smith for his work but instead praised the record of his successor as Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, Tony Lloyd:

‘Tony is a highly experienced former Government Minister who is committed to ensuring that peace in Northern Ireland is maintained and helping to steer the devolution deal back on track.’

This is an interesting time of the day to put out a statement about a sacking. It’s also interesting given there is another, much more serious row going on in Labour today about a photo of an anti-Semitic mural that Jeremy Corbyn commented approvingly on:

I asked the Leader’s Office for an explanation about this Facebook post first thing this morning.