"Old enemies call a truce from their daily hostilities to turn all the available ire on the traitor in their midst. Ask Shaun Woodward, the former Conservative MP for Witney who legged it to Labour in 1999 while making all sorts of rather grand demands in the process. He was blackballed by his original party for such a flagrant act of opportunism, and hated by his new family as someone never to be entirely trusted."
"I remember the shock and anger when entering the chamber in April 2024 to see Dan Poulter seated uncomfortably behind Keir Starmer for PMQs. Not only had we had no warning, but as he had barely even attended parliament in anyone's recent memory, we weren't quite sure whether Labour would know who he was. Only weeks later, Dover diehard Natalie Elphicke pulled the same stunt and also promptly disappeared from view."
"How she could have left friends and whips a few hours earlier with the impression that she was voting with the government that day, I am not quite sure. It seems that such niceties matter little to the defector community, any more than loyalty to the party, volunteers, voters and supporters who gave them such a privileged position in the first place."
Defections from the Conservatives to Reform UK create deep resentment and can unite former colleagues against the defector. Past defections such as Shaun Woodward's 1999 switch led to blackballing and enduring mistrust. Sudden moves by MPs like Dan Poulter in April 2024 and Natalie Elphicke caused shock and confusion in the chamber and concern among party whips. Defectors often ignore loyalty to party members, volunteers, voters and supporters. Downstream effects include government jitters, internal security measures that ranked colleagues green, amber or red, and deployment of 'charm police' to retain fragile majorities ahead of an undecided election date.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]