Jeremy Corbyn’s night of the blunt knives

Jeremy Corbyn’s drawn-out purge of dissident MPs has been labelled the “night of the blunt knives”.

Jeremy Corbyn's drawn-out "purge of dissident MPs" has been labelled the "night of the blunt knives", says Jim Pickard in the Financial Times. Prior to his 48-hour shadow cabinet reshuffle, involving "interminable negotiations" with his MPs, Corbyn had already said that he wanted to remove several of those who had defied him publicly on key policy issues, including defence spokeswoman Maria Eagle, an outspoken backer of Trident, and shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, who called on Labour MPs to support the government over Syrian airstrikes.

Benn stayed in his post in return for an end to public dissent, avoiding a "mass shadow cabinet walkout of up to ten MPs", say Frances Perraudin and Rowena Mason in The Guardian. But Corbyn replaced Eagle with anti-Trident Emily Thornberry and sacked another two frontbenchers for "disloyalty": the shadow Europe minister, Pat McFadden, who made "what was seen as a coded attack on Corbyn's response to the Paris terror attacks"; and the shadow culture secretary, Michael Dugher, whose post was then given to Eagle. Ten members of the shadow cabinet leapt to Dugher's defence in the so-called "revenge reshuffle", and three junior shadow ministers promptly resigned. Elsewhere, Emma Lewell-Buck became shadow devolution minister, replacing Jon Trickett.

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