Out MP Angela Eagle promoted to shadow cabinet in Corbyn reshuffle
Labour MP Angela Eagle has been promoted during Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet reshuffle.
Corbyn went from being an unlikely outsider in the race to succeed Ed Miliband to the firm favourite – winning the contest outright in the first round of voting on Saturday.
Eagle, one of the few out lesbians in Parliament, had put herself in the running to replace Harriet Harman as deputy leader, but failed to be elected.
Instead, she will serve as shadow business secretary and shadow first secretary of state.
The MP for Wallasey served as a minister under Gordon Brown.
Speaking to PinkNews previously, Eagle hit out at the government’s “daft” and “ignorant” approach to LGBT asylum issues.
She said: “There are some daft decisions in terms of how they decide whether you are gay or not, which are about ignorance about what being gay actually is.
“That’s why we want a review to check how we can do this properly, in a way that is respectful and accurate.”
“We need to come up with a structure that works better than that old caricature that, for example, says that if you are a lesbian you can’t have children… I mean how ignorant is that?”
