Ian Murray has been sacked as Scotland Secretary in Sir Keir Starmer’s Cabinet reshuffle following Angela Rayner’s resignation as deputy prime minister and Housing Secretary.
Douglas Alexander — who held the post in Tony Blair’s government and is close to Sir Keir — will replace him. Sir Keir appointed him trade minister after Labour won power last year and he will return to the Cabinet after af 15-year absence.
Last month he was appointed the co-chair of Labour’s Holyrood election campaign alongside Dame Jackie Baillie.
Mr Murray accompanied the Prime Minister in Scotland on Thursday as they toured the frigate HMS Glasgow, currently under construction by BAE Systems in Scotstoun.
He is Labour’s longest serving Scottish MP, representing Edinburgh South since 2010 and was made Scotland Secretary when Labour won last year’s general election.
In a parting note, Mr Murray admitted he was “hugely disappointed to be leaving government” and reflected on what he has helped to bring about, including the UK supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh, the largest budget settlement in the history of devolution, and GB Energy in Aberdeen.
Axeing Mr Murray just months from the Scottish elections has raised eyebrows across the political spectrum and caused some anger within Scottish Labour whose members value his contribution to the party’s planning, not least his efforts in the run-up to last year’s general election success.
First elected in 2010, Mr Murray was the party’s only Scottish MP between 2015 and 2017, and again from 2019 to 2023.
In other moves, Lucy Powell, the Leader of the House of Commons, has also left government.
Following Angela Rayner’s departure, David Lammy becomes the new deputy prime minister, in addition to being made justice secretary. Steve Reed moves from Environment to take over as Housing Secretary.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who has been struggling to get on top of the small boats crisis, moves to the Foreign Office with a demanding remit that will includes wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. She becomes the UK’s sixth foreign secretary in the last five years.
She is replaced by Shabana Mahmood while Pat McFadden will replace Liz Kendall at Work and Pensions.
Peter Kyle becomes the new business secretary, a position previously held by Jonathan Reynolds who becomes government chief whip.
Liz Kendall replaces Mr Kyle him as science secretary. Lisa Nandy will remain culture secretary despite months of briefings against her.
Ms Rayner resigned this morning shortly after Sir Keir received a report from Sir Laurie Magnus, the prime minister’s independent adviser on ministerial standards.
She admitted to underpaying stamp duty on a property, but blamed the “error” on inadequate legal advice.
The government suffered another blow when the investment minister, Baroness Gustafsson of Chesterton also resigned. The former boss of cybersecurity firm Darktrace was appointed by Sir Keir less than a year ago.
Shadow secretary for Housing, Communities and Local Government, James Cleverly, said on X: “So many sideways moves in this reshuffle.
“Starmer can’t claim it’s about promoting new talent, or about removing dead wood. So it can only be that he put people into the wrong jobs last year.”
The SNP said “Scottish families are paying the price for Labour Party failure”. Stephen Gethins MP said the sacking is “the latest sign of Labour Party division, acrimony and infighting” as the Labour Party slumped 20 points behind the SNP in the latest opinion polls this week.
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