DEPUTY Labour leader Angela Rayner has been sacked from her role as chairman after the party’s poor showing in the Super Thursday elections, it has been reported.
Labour received a drubbing in the local elections, losing control of a host of councils and suffering defeat at the hands of Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in the Hartlepool by-election – the first time the constituency has gone blue since its inception in the 1970s.
READ MORE: LIVE: All the news from the Scottish Parliament election as seats are declared
The sacking signals cracks at the top of the party, with rows over who was to blame for the election strategy.
Speaking yesterday, leader Sir Keir Starmer said he was “bitterly disappointed” with the results and vowed to take responsibility and to fix Labour’s election woes.
Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the decision to remove Rayner as Labour’s chairman and campaigns chief was a “cowardly avoidance of responsibility”.
The senior party figure tweeted: “Keir Starmer said yesterday that he took full responsibility for the election result in Hartlepool and other losses.
“Instead today he’s scapegoating everyone apart from himself.
“This isn’t leadership, it’s a cowardly avoidance of responsibility.”
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