All change at Change UK as opportunists quit in search of someone who’ll vote for them
And then there was one: Anna Soubry, centre, is the new leader of Change UK, while former leader Heidi Allen (left) and Sarah Wollaston (right) have quit the party like rats leaving the proverbial sinking ship.
Six of Change UK’s MPs have quit the party after it failed to make an impression at the European Parliamentary elections.
It speaks volumes about the party that its principal defectors were its former leader, Heidi Allen, and spokesman Chuka Umunna.
Both have been talking up the prospect of an alliance with the Liberal Democrats – who, conversely, fared exceptionally well at the elections.
While they haven’t actually joined the Lib Dems yet, it seems a safe bet that they will.
Also out of CHUK are Gavin Shuker, Luciana Berger, Angela Smith and Sarah Wollaston.
You can smell the desperation, can’t you?
These people left their respective parties in the belief that their personal brands were more popular than those of the parties they were leaving.
They were wrong – even the three who left the Conservatives.
Now, it seems to This Writer, the six quitters – double-quitters, if you think about it – are looking for another way to keep themselves in Parliament.
With the Liberal Democrats apparently on the rise again thanks to their stance as the “Party of Remain”, it seems they look like good prospects.
I’d say “watch this space”, but in the case of Change UK it is only likely to grow more empty.
Source: Change UK loses six of its 11 MPs after dire EU elections result | Politics | The Guardian
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This has been the laugh I needed this week. The fact that these ‘grown ups’ have jumped ship not once, but TWICE, in just THREE MONTHS, tells you all about the kind of principles they possess…or rather don’t possess. What a bunch of desperate, self-centred, grubbing opportunists they are. And what timing too, to announce the disintegration on the day that the political sphere is all about Trump’s state visit. Like covering a fart up with a cough, they hope their embarrassment will go unnoticed. If they do remain as independents than I look forward to the next GE when their political careers will be consigned to the dustbin of history once and for all.
Ha ha, what a farce, and what pathetic bunch.
Surely they have to leave or be kicked out of their Parties Now? I mean they left and formed an other party and stood for it.
So they must all have left their parties and need t resign be kicked out and all their constituencies be put up for another vote for a new MP. so looking forward to Heidi and Chuka going, and the rest.
I’d say that this is the ‘trash taking itself out’ but no doubt everyone else has already said it.
But it DOES show, the fact that they are considering joining with LibDems, that the issue has ONLY been about getting and keeping power, and nothing else.
Of course this reminds me of the ill-fated SDP in the 1980s who yearned to take The Labour Party to the right, when they failed they broke away (with a lot more support than this bunch) and managed to fare not too badly for a newly formed party until the inevitable happened and they joined up with the Liberal Party.
That SHOULD have settled matters, Labour IS a party of the left and it’s founding principles were to protect the workers and promote rights and welfare. Blair then DID manage to drag the party to the right, almost to the point f being Tory Wets and managed to steal the clothes, and votes, of the Tories.
Now we have someone who is actually a true Labour man in charge, despite the PLP doing everything possible up to and including tearing the party apart, to rid themselves of him. It’s ironic, despite Corbyn being called ‘hard left’ he is actually moderate in his views. We SHOULD see Labour settle down as a left wing party. This would actually give voters a choice. the complaint in the 90s/00s was that you ‘couldn’t get a fag paper between em’ Well now you can. Instead of focus groups Labour should do what the SNP did in the run up to the Referendum in ’14 and actually have public meetings, take questions and try to change the point of view of the public. If you BELIEVE in your policies you can persuade others, if you don’t believe you have focus groups to see what will sell your party and get you into power.
Hopefully those on the right in the party can also find a space for themselves in the LibDems, and leave a Labour Party with it’s founding principles renewed.
It’s impossible to respect this group of politicians who hunger for power but maybe they’re just a little more open about it than most…
I have just read this news. I was a little gleeful, when I ready the headline, ion the B.B.C. website but when I read that Heidi Allen and Chuka had left, I burst out laughing! What was the point of their efforts? Did they really think that, in the current political climate, in fact, in ANY political climate, they were just going to march in and take over? Has history taught them nothing? Perhaps, they didn’t pay attention in class and examine what happened to the S.D.P. These people have either no patience, or no clue, or were simply not interested in forming a serious political movement. I d to think it clear, now, that their constituents deserve a bi-election.
It isn’t the first time political opportunists find themselves isolated and not as important as they thought they were.