Corbyn ally Angela Rayner backs crucial plan allowing Labour MPs to elect the shadow cabinet

The shadow minister has urged her party leader to take a conciliatory approach with MPs who opposed him

The shadow education secretary says the move could help heal divisions (Getty)

One of the rising stars of Jeremy Corbyn’s frontbench has said she backs allowing MPs to help elect the shadow cabinet as long as it moves the party “forward”.

Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner said the move could help heal divisions between Mr Corbyn and MPs and went on to make an impassioned plea for colleagues to come back to the frontbench saying, “we need you”.

Speaking exclusively with The Independent, she also urged her leader to be conciliatory with MPs who opposed him and said staff at the party’s HQ should not feel “vulnerable”, despite rumours that some face the chop if Mr Corbyn wins.

The shadow minister, who was rapidly promoted, also lashed out at Theresa May’s grammar school plans claiming the Prime Minister is misguiding working class families into thinking it will help their children out of poverty, saying she is “selling them a pup”.

Earlier this week, Labour’s National Executive Committee failed to agree on a plan put forward by deputy leader Tom Watson to allow MPs to elect members of the shadow cabinet.

They will revisit the idea, thought to be a concession which could help bridge divisions with the parliamentary party, at a special meeting of the executive on Saturday, after Mr Corbyn is expected to have won the leadership.

Ms Rayner said: “Anything that moves us forward is a positive thing. If we can have shadow cabinet elections that move us forward – that’s great.

“But if it’s a case of trying to undermine the democratically elected leader by trying to replace people that are supportive, with people that just want to oppose the leader and marginalise him, I don’t think that will move us on.”

She added: “I’m not opposed if it takes us forward, that’s the big caveat for me.”

She said Mr Corbyn has a right to use any mandate he might win, but added “he should use it to work with people, rather than against them”.

Asked how Mr Corbyn would need to approach his party after victory, she said: “I think it has to be conciliatory. It has to be firm and fair.”

Addressing colleagues who left the frontbench directly she said: “Come back. We need you. You are just as important as anybody else in that room.

“We need to be more a united force against the Conservatives because they are attacking the very fabric of our society at the moment.”

She also backed staffers at Labour HQ, where some fear a purge of anyone unsupportive of the leader following a potential Corbyn win.

While highlighting that “staffing matters” are not her remit, she added: “Members of staff do have a right to be treated with respect and to be dealt with respectfully within their contracts of employment.

“Nobody should be feeling vulnerable.”

Ms Rayner has made a name for herself speaking out about government policy on grammar schools, for which she claims there is little positive evidence.

Attacking Ms May directly, she said: “She has tried to dress it up as choice for parents. It’s not a choice for parents, it’s choice for those schools.

“Those schools will select and it will be on the basis of children who can be tutored, by private tutors normally, to pass the 11-plus and the rest of the kids will be wrote off at the age of 11.”

She added: “She’s trying to make it as if somehow this is going to be the golden ticket out of poverty for kids from my background, well it isn’t. That’s what annoys me, she is selling them a pup.”