Owen Smith sacked from Labour's shadow cabinet

Credit: PA

  • Video report by ITV News Political Correspondent Paul Brand

Jeremy Corbyn has faced a backlash from MPs after sacking Owen Smith from his shadow cabinet.

Mr Smith was removed from his position as Labour's Northern Ireland secretary after calling for a second EU referendum in The Guardian.

But a number of MPs criticised the move, with Labour peer Lord Hain comparing the move to a "terrible Stalinist purge".

Former leadership hopeful Chuka Umunna labelled the sacking "bizarre", saying that Mr Smith's views on Brexit were in line with the majority of Labour voters.

And Labour MP Mike Gapes said it appeared that "free speech is allowed for anti-Semites but not for Labour MPs supporting the views of our members and our 2016 Conference Policy on the EU".

Mr Smith said he had been sacked for his views on the "damage" Brexit will do to the UK's economy and the Good Friday Agreement.

He told ITV News: "The problem is that the members agree with me on this issue in the majority.

"They believe that we should be staying in the customs union and the single market.

"They believe that in the event of the true terms of the deal becoming clear to everybody the right thing to do is either a general election or a poll of the country to put that to the people once more."

Mr Smith, who unsuccessfully challenged Mr Corbyn for the party leadership in 2016, insisted to the newspaper that Labour needed to do more than "just back a soft Brexit".

Mr Corbyn has been careful to say that Labour is not seeking a referendum on a Brexit deal, but has avoided completely ruling out such a vote.

In a sign of the leader's anger at Mr Smith's intervention, he was asked to stand down from the frontbench and replaced with immediate effect by former minister Tony Lloyd.

Chuka Umunna said the sacking was 'bizarre'. Credit: PA

Writing in The Guardian, Mr Smith said: "Given that it is increasingly obvious that the promises the Brexiters made to the voters - especially, but not only, their pledge of an additional £350 million a week for the NHS - are never going to be honoured, we have the right to keep asking if Brexit remains the right choice for the country.

"And to ask, too, that the country has a vote on whether to accept the terms, and true costs of that choice, once they are clear.

"That is how Labour can properly serve our democracy and the interests of our people."

Mr Smith said that remaining in the EU single market and customs union was the only way to meet the UK's commitments under the Good Friday Agreement.

"If we insist on leaving the EU then there is realistically only one way to honour our obligations under the Good Friday Agreement and that is to remain members of both the customs union and the single market," he said.

"I'm pleased my party has taken a big step in this direction by backing continued customs union membership, but we need to go further."