Tag: Chris Leslie

The Independent Group of MPs has been challenged by the petitions site Change.org about their plans to register as a political party called Change UK. The breakaway group of former Labour and Tory MPs is to formally register as a political party in time for potential European elections, and has said the former Conservative MP Heidi Allen will be interim leader. It is understood Change.org is seeking legal advice and contacting the Electoral commission. “This new party is using the language of Change.org. In a statement on Twitter, Change.org said it was “totally independent of party politics” and said it was seeking advice on how to challenge the branding. “It’s said that imitation is a form of flattery. The group will register as Change UK – The Independent Group. “A new party will shake up the two-party system and provide people with an alternative that can change our country for the better,” Umunna said. “This is what Change UK will be aiming to do at any European elections if our application for registration is accepted in time.” Allen said she wanted to attract support from across political backgrounds. Three Tory MPs joined the group two days after the Labour MPs defected, saying they believed their party was being held hostage by hard Brexiters.

He will turn 70 in May, shortly after the local elections, which will be handy for his political obituarists if Labour does as poorly as polls currently suggest. The Labour left has been othered. In recent weeks, MPs at a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party have reportedly applauded the Independent Group breakaway, despite the immense damage it has done to the chances of a Labour government. Despite, or, rather, partly because of, all the panics about the Labour left, it has rarely been dominant in the party. “Labour leaders tremble at the relentless advance of Benn’s army,” warned the Express in May 1981, after Benn launched his famous bid for the party’s deputy leadership. And yet, in large part because the press othered him so effectively, as a kind of foreign demagogue – “Ayatollah Benn”, according to the Sun, after Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomeini – he did not win. He co-founded the SDP partly to block it. Last month, at the launch of the Independent Group, Leslie caricatured Corbynism in almost exactly the same way. Does it matter that so many people don’t want British politics to include a left of any significance? Even if you’re not at all leftwing, recent British history suggests it does.

The seven MPs who left Labour on Monday all cited irreconcilable differences with the party’s Brexit policy, and the way it has dealt with antisemitism and bullying allegations. Chuka Umunna in particular has been a leading figure in the People’s Vote campaign for a second referendum and led a parliamentary rebellion on an amendment to the Queen’s speech, which said the UK should remain in the single market and customs union. On almost all other domestic issues, including welfare and the economy, MPs have voted with the party whip, though Umunna, Chris Leslie, Luciana Berger, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes and Ann Coffey all voted in favour of strikes in Syria against Islamic State, the opposite way to Corbyn, although it was a free vote. Foreign affairs and national security Apart from Brexit and antisemitism, national security policy is a key difference. The group’s statement of intent says the “first duty of government must be to defend its people and do whatever it takes to safeguard Britain’s national security”. The Independent Group’s statement underlines “the sound stewardship of taxpayers’ money” as one of its core values, echoing some of the group’s early unease with Corbyn’s leadership bid. In her resignation speech, Smith cited her working-class background as a reason for her departure. It also implicitly criticises the Labour party membership system and the concept of MPs being accountable to party members. For now, the group has no name or leader for a new party, let alone policies or a manifesto. Some members of the Independent Group have their own policy ideas which they are likely to be keen to promote.