Labour frontbencher Lisa Nandy visits picket line amid strikes row

Labour shadow minister Lisa Nandy was pictured on a picket line in Wigan

A Labour shadow minister has visited striking workers days after one of her frontbench colleagues was sacked for remarks made on a picket line.

Lisa Nandy was pictured alongside union members from BT and Openreach striking in her Wigan constituency.

An ally of Ms Nandy said she appeared to show support for constituents and had told the Labour leader's office about the visit in advance.

Last week shadow minister Sam Tarry was fired after joining striking workers.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he fired Mr Tarry - who was the party's transport spokesman - for doing interviews "without permission" and "making up policy on the hoof".

Mr Tarry said workers should get pay rises in line with inflation in a media interview from a strike held by rail workers at London Euston station.

Labour's policy is that there should be "fair" rises through negotiation, and Sir Keir said shadow ministers needed to maintain "collective responsibility".

But unions and some left-wing Labour MPs reacted furiously to Mr Tarry's sacking, with Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, saying the party was "becoming more and more irrelevant to ordinary working people".

• MP fired for making up policy on the hoof - Starmer

• Union anger at Labour over sacking of Sam Tarry

• Are we set for a general strike?

Ms Nandy's visit to a picket line on Monday raised fresh questions about the party's policy on shadow ministers attending strikes.

A Labour source said: "The position hasn't changed and of course MPs can still meet their constituents and respond to issues affecting their area."

A photo of the shadow levelling up secretary meeting striking workers in Wigan was tweeted by North West regional secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), Carl Webb.

Members of the CWU - the biggest union for the communications industry in the UK with 199,443 members - were holding strikes nationally over a pay dispute on Monday.

In a tweet, Mr Tarry said it was "great" to see Ms Nandy on the picket line, adding: "Senior Labour politicians need to demonstrate loud and clear that our party is on the side of ordinary working people."

But a source close to Ms Nandy made a distinction between her visit to the picket line and that of Mr Tarry last week.

"She went down to show her support for constituents campaigning for better pay and conditions at a really tough time, as you'd expect," the source told the BBC.

The source drew attention to Sir Keir's reasoning for sacking Mr Tarry and an article the Labour leader wrote in the Sunday Mirror newspaper.

In the article, Sir Keir said Labour must move away from being a "party of protest" in order to win elections and "hand power to working people".

The Labour leader insisted he supported the right to strike, but that his focus was on getting into government.

Over the weekend Ms Nandy appeared to back Sir Keir's position on strikes in a tweet, writing her boss "couldn't be clearer" on the issue.

"People have every right to go out on strike for better wages and conditions," she wrote. "Now they need a Labour government to hand power to working people again."