Lisa Nandy Says Labour Party Will Unite After Leadership Fight
Labour MP Lisa Nandy says that the party will move on united, whoever wins the leadership election - but she will not serve in a Corbyn shadow cabinet.
Lisa Nandy was appointed to Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change by Jeremy Corbyn in September last year. However, as divisions emerged and widened in the party and the leadership seemed willing to let it split, Nandy stepped down from her seat in June this year.
Speaking to LBC's Shelagh Fogarty, Nandy said that she believes the party will unite again after the Labour leadership election, regardless of who wins.
"Everybody has to make their own mind up about how they can best make a contribution.
"But everybody I know in the Parliamentary Labour Party, including people in and around the leader and in the broader PLP, feel that at times in politics you have to put aside personal interest in order to move forward."
The MP for Wigan believes that those who disagree with Jeremy Corbyn and his policies can still serve the Labour party and further its aims by working from the back benches.
"In the last parliament, the people that I saw make the biggest contribution in Labour, arguably, were Stella Creasey on loan sharks and Tom Watson on News International. Both of them did it from the back benches."
However, in spite of her faith in the party reuniting, Nandy says she does not expect to return to Corbyn's shadow cabinet.
"I came out of the shadow cabinet because of the very clear difference we had. We've now got a new team in place that need to be given a chance to do their job."
Nandy is one of a group of MPs who are tipped as potential successors to Jeremy Corbyn and was urged to run for leader after Ed Milliband stepped down, so could be appointing a cabinet of her own one day.
