SIR KEIR STARMER was accused today of doubling down on a failed strategy with his shadow cabinet reshuffle after a disastrous election campaign for Labour last week. 

Left group Momentum criticised the replacement of Anneliese Dodds as shadow chancellor with rightwinger Rachel Reeves, who is notorious for pledging to be “tougher than the Tories” on benefits at the height of work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith’s attacks on the jobless and disabled in 2013.

And former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said the Labour leader was trying to make his deputy, Angela Rayner, carry the can by firing her as party chair. 

Nick Brown has also been removed as chief whip after having served five different party leaders. 

Ms Abbott said there is a “problem with strategy” within the party. She urged unity, claiming that party officials had attempted to sack the elected deputy leader altogether.

Labour took a drubbing in some parts of England, losing control of a host of councils and suffering defeat in Hartlepool as the north-east constituents elected a Tory MP for the first time since 1959.

The party lost control of Durham Council for the first time in a century, had its leader deposed by the Greens in Sheffield, and saw its control in Bristol dissolve. 

Ms Abbott urged Sir Keir to return to pledges he made when he ran for the leadership, including abolishing universal credit.

Momentum says that the party must adopt a progressive agenda to win the hearts of voters. 

Co-chairman Andrew Scattergood said: “Rearranging the deck chairs will have no impact on Labour’s electoral prospects if there is not also a fundamental shift towards a transformative economic vision that can unite working-class voters across the country, from Bristol to Hartlepool. 

“Considering her track record, Rachel Reeves’s appointment signals the exact opposite: that Starmer is doubling down on a failed strategy that has already cost us hundreds of council seats across the country and a constituency that Labour has held for decades.”

Communist Party of Britain general secretary Robert Griffiths said the legacy of Jeremy Corbyn has been blamed for the results last week, but it was actually the failure of Labour’s current leader to campaign for bold and relevant policies that had seen voters turn away.

He said the labour movement must not listen to “false prophets of the right.”