Labour in 'uncharted territory' after reshuffle, says Kinnock

Jeremy Corbyn held meetings late into the night on Tuesday

Labour is "going into uncharted territory" following leader Jeremy Corbyn's reshuffle, the party's Aberavon MP Stephen Kinnock has said.

Europe spokesman Pat McFadden and culture spokesman Michael Dugher were sacked while shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn stays in post.

A Corbyn ally said the sackings were over "issues about loyalty".

Mr Kinnock said loyalty was a difficult issue for Mr Corbyn, who often defied the whip before he was leader.

Mr Kinnock told BBC Wales' Good Morning Wales programme: "What we are seeing is the Labour Party going into uncharted territory.

"We have a leader who, of course, has a track record when he was on the back benches of defying the whip, I think 550 times.

"I think there's a sort of an in principle expectation that you follow the whip, whether you're on the back benches or the front bench.

"Jeremy didn't do that and that is something which is, I think, a factor in all of this because it is quite difficult for him to conduct a loyalty driven reshuffle given his own track record.

"The key thing now is that we put ourselves back together and we start to turn our fire on this government."

Stephen Kinnock disagreed with Mr Corbyn's decision to have a reshuffle

Allies of Mr Corbyn defended his right to make changes, saying the shadow cabinet had been out of line with the party as a whole on issues such as Syria.

Labour peer and former Swansea East MP Lord Anderson said Mr Corbyn's leadership position remained weak.

He said: "The real question, I guess, in the reshuffle is who is the boss?"

"Had there been this night of the long knives, clearly Jeremy Corbyn would have been the boss, but it's been relatively low key."