Monday, June 27, 2016

The Mystery of Jon Ashworth's failure to resign


With so many shadow cabinet ministers having resigned over the last two days, it is worth taking a look at those who have not resigned.

And among them you will find the name of the Leicester South MP Jon Ashworth, who retained his position as shadow minister without portfolio in the rump cabinet of loyalists announced by Jeremy Corbyn this afternoon.

Why hasn't Ashworth resigned like so many of his colleagues?

He is not of the far left: he was an Ed Miliband loyalist parachuted into Leicester South for the 2011 by-election,

One theory is that the anti-Corbyn forces want him to stay in the shadow cabinet so he keeps his seat on the party's national executive. But then Angela Eagle was also on the executive and that didn't stop her resigning.

Demonstrators in Leicester today were demanding that Ashworth support Corbyn. The Leicester Mercury just wants to talk to him.

The tweet above suggests that Ashworth is far from being a Corbyn supporter, but until he explains himself the mystery will remain.

Later. The mystery deepens. That tweet has now been deleted.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No mystery. His CLP nominated Corbyn. He values his seat.