Keir Starmer has carried out a wholesale overhaul of his shadow cabinet, bringing Yvette Cooper back onto 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. Other significant moves 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.
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, but Miliband will have no department to shadow directly. 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 and Kate Green, appeared to point to a fresh shift towards the political centre.
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 of the changes in a brief chat as she moved between a media round and a major speech.
