Keir Starmer has carried out a wholesale overhaul of his shadow cabinet, bringing Yvette Cooper back on to the frontbench as part of a ruthless shakeup widely viewed at Westminster as accelerating Labour’s shift to the centre under his leadership. Cooper, who served in the last Labour government, will shadow Priti Patel as home secretary, resuming the spiky interactions the pair have had in Cooper’s current role as chair of the home affairs select committee. Other significant moves on Monday include a promotion for David Lammy to shadow foreign secretary, while Lisa Nandy will face Michael Gove as shadow levelling-up secretary. The radical reshuffle, which blindsided Starmer’s own deputy, left almost no senior role untouched. “The Labour party I lead is focused on the priorities of the country,” Starmer said. “With this reshuffle, we are a smaller, more focused shadow cabinet that mirrors the shape of the government we are shadowing. We must hold the Conservative government to account on behalf of the public and demonstrate that we are the right choice to form the next government.” He lavished praise on Nandy, whose shift from shadow foreign secretary to the levelling-up brief would traditionally be regarded as a demotion – though levelling up is politically prominent because it is at the heart of Boris Johnson’s agenda, and the Wigan MP has previously been a strong voice on tackling regional inequalities. “After 11 years of Conservative mismanagement of our economy, delivering prosperity to all regions and nations in the UK will be a defining mission of the next Labour government, and there will be nobody better than Lisa to lead this work,” Starmer said.
Ed Miliband loses his responsibility for the business portfolio, which goes to Jonathan Reynolds. Starmer underlined the importance of Miliband’s new role as shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero, calling him “a powerful, internationally well-respected voice on the issue”. But Miliband will have no department to shadow directly. He and Starmer had clashed at Labour’s annual conference over whether the big six energy firms should be nationalised. The promotion of key figures from the right of the party – including Bridget Phillipson and Wes Streeting, to education and health respectively – with the demotions of several on the soft left, including Miliband, Kate Green, who will return to the backbenches, and Nick Thomas-Symonds, moved from Home Office shadow to international trade, appeared to point to a fresh shift towards the political centre. However, Starmer’s team insisted the reshuffle was focused on promoting the best people for the job, and laying the political groundwork for the next general election. Streeting inherited the shadow health secretary role from Jon Ashworth, who is moving to work and pensions, while former leadership contender Emily Thornberry switched from international trade to become shadow attorney general, replacing the peer Charlie Falconer. Starmer moved Jo Stevens from the digital, culture, media and sport brief to be the shadow Welsh secretary, replacing Nia Griffiths, who had remained in the shadow cabinet since Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Former shadow housing secretary Lucy Powell will take over at culture, while Hove MP Peter Kyle is promoted to the shadow cabinet at Northern Ireland, with Louise Haigh moved to transport. Cat Smith, a shadow Cabinet Office minister, quit with a barb at Starmer, saying she was “one of our few remaining ‘red wall’ Labour MPs”. She also raised concerns that Corbyn still had the party’s whip suspended. Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell criticised the reshuffle, tweeting, “reviving the careers of former Blairite ministers and simply reappointing existing Shadow Cabinet ministers to new posts does give the impression of Christmas Past not Christmas Future.” Starmer’s deputy, Angela Rayner, was blindsided by the overhaul on Monday morning, with the Labour leader informing her that he was reshaping his team in a brief chat as she moved between a media round and a major speech on standards in public life. Her spokesperson later clarified she had been told by Starmer that morning it would happen that day, though not when. Speaking as the reshuffle got underway, she said: “I don’t know the details of the reshuffle or the timing of it. But six months ago I said again we need some consistency in how we are approaching things as an opposition and I want to see us as a government in waiting, doing that job.” An ally of Rayner said Starmer would have been fully aware the move would “blow up” her bid to lay out plans for reforming the standards system and said it was “not fair”. Starmer’s team believed it was the right moment for a reshuffle, however, with the prime minister under pressure after a series of backbench revolts, and the vaccine bounce in the polls apparently waning. Allies say he is enjoying the job more than he has for some months, while Labour MPs have been cheered by the recent modest shifts in the polls in their favour, and strong performances at prime minister’s questions. The reshuffle was Starmer’s second in nine months, after he moved Rayner from her role as elections coordinator in the wake of the loss of the Hartlepool byelection in May. At that time, he replaced Anneliese Dodds as shadow chancellor with the more high-profile Rachel Reeves. But plans for a wider reshuffle, which were rumoured to include a demotion for Nandy, were put on hold after a lengthy standoff with Rayner.