Change UK has spit with six of its 11 MPs quitting the party.
Interim leader Heidi Allen has left the party, alongside Sarah Wollaston, Luciana Berger, Gavin Shuker, Angela Smith and Chuka Umunna.
Anna Soubry has been appointed the party’s new leader.
Brexit is breaking British politics. Both the traditional powers have been shipwrecked by this storm and show no signs of knowing how to repair their ruined timbers. This is the sort of thing everyone understands. If the Tories enjoy more support than Labour this is only because Labour is so very bad. It is not because Theresa May’s Government commands the confidence of the people. In any case, her party is slowly but surely devouring itself over Brexit. Again, everyone knows this.
Theresa May has made clear she will bring her deal back for MPs to vote on by 12 March.
Mr McDonnell said this will be when Jeremy Corbyn puts the party’s amendment forward for a Final Say referendum on Brexit.
Unfortunately, I must remain anonymous for fear of the backlash I would receive at my place of work. However, I can reveal that I am a senior policy professional within the civil service and work closely with numerous governmental departments.
MPs will vote again on Theresa May’s Brexit deal on Tuesday.
Former Brexit Secretary David Davis MP told the BBC’s Andrew Marr that MPs not delivering on the Brexit referendum would undermine belief in political parties.
The former Brexit secretary said any move to extend Article 50 would be a “democratic disaster” that would leave the Conservative Party “massively damaged”.
“It would absolutely undermine belief in democracy in this country and certainly belief in the establishment political parties,” he told BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
Soubry might not be quite as far Right as Jacob Rees-Mogg or Liam Fox but she is Right-wing, a Tory who left the Conservative Party but not Conservativism by justifying cruel welfare cuts which drove desperate people to the charity of Foodbanks just to eat.
Potential Labour defectors will now think twice before throwing in their lot with ex-Conservatives.
Theresa May has said she is ‘saddened’ by the decision of Heidi Allen, Sarah Wollaston and Anna Soubry to leave the Conservative party and join the new Independent Group of MPs. In statement released in the past few minutes, the Prime Minister said:
– Tory MPs Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen defect to Independent Group over Brexit
– Asa Bennett: Tory quitters have proved Independent Group is a Remainer revolt
– Markets: Pound slips on Westminster turmoil
– Theresa May to meet Jean-Claude Juncker at 5pm
– PM could hold meaningful vote next week to avoid ministerial resignations
– Data analysis: Farage’s Brexit Party has more obvious slot in UK politics than the Independent Group
Most importantly, the circumstances in which the Independent Group now finds itself, certainly compared to 1981, are perilous to say the least.
Those areas initially most susceptible to the rise of the SDP – university towns and wealthier metropolitan areas – now tend to be bastions of Corbynism, the social base of which is relatively straight-forward: public sector workers, BAME communities, university graduates who feel they’ve lost out, trade unions, older generations who drifted away from the party under Tony Blair, those deeply politicised by austerity.
✅ Pro water privatisation
✅ Pro fracking
✅ Pro corporate lobbying
✅ Pro … Which? magazine
✅ Pro foreign wars for literally no reason What have I missed?
The moral superiority of the left is often mocked as political correctness, but it is rarely questioned. But the resignation of Luciana Berger and six of her colleagues has brutally and publicly done exactly that.
When Berger said that she had come to the „sickening conclusion“ that the Labour Party was „institutionally anti-Semitic,“ she ripped open a conflict that is tearing the UK’s main opposition party apart.
The Conservatives are captured by their right-wing, Labour by their hard left, and all put their own party interests before what is best for the country.
It’s time we changed our old-fashioned politics for politics fit for the 21st century.
The new “Independent Group” has launched its twitter account and a website.