UK opposition leader fires Hilary Benn from shadow cabinet
The leader of Britain's main opposition party, Jeremy Corbyn, has dismissed his shadow foreign minister following revelations he was orchestrating a coup against the Labour leader.
Corbyn informed Hilary Benn in the early hours of Sunday that he was firing him because he had lost the party leader’s trust, a Corbyn spokesman said, The Observer reports.
Benn had called fellow MPs over the weekend to suggest that he would ask Corbyn to resign if there was significant support for a move against him.
He has reportedly won about a third of shadow cabinet members following Thursday’s EU referendum, which saw Britain breaking away from the EU by a 52-48 margin.
Benn had also asked colleagues to resign if Corbyn ignored their request.
Hours after the referendum, two lawmakers submitted a motion of no confidence in Corbyn and other MPs also called for his resignation.
The Labour leader has been under criticism by some Labour lawmakers for failing to prevent Brexit.
The growing calls for change have been heightened by David Cameron’s decision to resign as prime minister.
In a speech on Saturday, Corbyn said he was prepared for re-election in any leadership contest.
“There are some people in the Labour Party ... who would want probably somebody else to be the leader of the Labour Party, they've made that abundantly clear,” he said.
“What I'm totally amazed by is that in the past 24 hours 140,000 people have said they do not want the Labour Party to spend the next two months debating the leadership,” he said, citing an online petition calling for him to remain the leader.
Meanwhile, shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander announced Sunday that she was resigning.
The British media reported that up to half of the shadow cabinet is set to resign in an attempt to force Corbyn to stand down.
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