Luciana Berger return a sign we have got our party back – Reeves

The return of Luciana Berger to Labour is a sign that the party has come an “awfully long way” since the days of Jeremy Corbyn, Rachel Reeves has said.

The shadow chancellor said that the Corbyn era had “almost destroyed” the party, as she welcomed her “good friend” back into the Labour fold.

The top Labour MP, addressing a press gallery lunch, said she was glad to be back at the centre of things, after she was consigned to the backbenches while the veteran left-winger was leader.

Ms Berger, a former Labour MP, walked out on the party in the spring of 2019 after facing a torrent of antisemitic abuse.

But the Jewish politician announced last month she had re-joined after an “incredibly heartfelt” invitation from leader Sir Keir Starmer.

Ms Reeves, reflecting on her time in politics, told reporters: “I have been a member of parliament for 13 years now. I have sat on the sidelines for too long, watching as government makes the wrong choice and then the wrong choice again.

“And I have had to watch my own party lurch off in all the wrong directions too.

“But under Keir’s leadership, we have come an awfully long way. To me, nothing symbolises that more than my good friend Luciana Berger being back, at home, in the Labour Party under Keir Starmer.

“And after the terrible and unforgivable failure to tackle antisemitism by Jeremy Corbyn and the last Labour leadership, which almost destroyed my party – I am so pleased that we have got it back.”

The shadow chancellor, who used her speech to throw jibes at the parade of chancellors she had faced, declined an invitation to rank the various Conservative politicians who had filled that post.

She said such a ranking would not be fair: “I don’t think I even went up against Nadhim Zahawi at the dispatch box.”

Of current chancellor Jeremy Hunt, she said that he should get some credit.

“He has been the Tory’s longest-serving culture secretary, their longest-serving health secretary and is the longest-serving Chancellor of the Exchequer since the current prime minister – and can anyone think of a single political achievement that he has had in all that time?”

Ms Reeves also said she would be travelling to the US in May – “not to visit my second home” she joked, in a dig at the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak – but to meet “Democrats, economists and thinkers” as the party prepares for government.

Stressing the importance of growing the economy, she accused the Government of failing to seize the opportunities presented by new industries and the shift to net zero.

“We are still in the changing rooms and other countries are running this race and they’ll get the investment and jobs to their countries.”

But, taking questions, she refused to be drawn on whether as chancellor she would commit money to the long-delayed restoration of the parliamentary estate at Westminster.

She joked that she often tells frontbench colleagues not to make any unfunded spending commitments “or they might end up in the Thames”, so would be following her own advice.

“This site is an iconic site and we want to preserve it for generations to come. But we have got to get value for money.

“We need to keep the costs down, because my constituents in Leeds West and people around the country are going to be very unforgiving if billions are available for a scheme like this, while the cost-of-living crisis is ongoing and whilst our public services are crumbling.”