Tory defector Christian Wakeford must face by-election in Bury South after joining Labour in hypocritical stunt – Bill Carmichael

In many ways I can’t blame him. He was elected in 2019 as one of the “Red Wall” Tories in the North of England with a wafer thin majority of just 402 votes in a seat that had been pretty solidly Labour since 1997.

Given current polls put Labour at least 10 points ahead of the Conservatives, his chances of defending his seat successfully as a Tory look vanishingly small.

‘In the name of God, go’: Why David Davis was right to demand Boris Johnson’s resignation as ‘red wall’ MP defects – The Yorkshire Post says

Perhaps Wakeford experienced a Road to Damascus moment when he realised after years of supporting Conservative policies as a councillor in Lancashire and as an MP, that Labour were right all along.

Or perhaps he looked at the polling figures and realised the game was up. Either way he crossed the floor of the House of Commons to sit on the Opposition benches.

One of the carefully stage managed images of the week was Wakeford, sitting complete with a Union Flag face mask, directly behind Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Question Time. I am not sure many of his new colleagues will entirely appreciate his patriotic gesture.

Under current rules there is nothing to stop Mr Wakeford continuing to sit in Parliament for whatever party he wishes to join without having his decision ratified by voters in a by-election.

We elect an individual, not a party, and Mr Wakeford can sit tight until a General Election comes along.

You can see why some voters feel aggrieved at this. In the 2019 General Election 22,034 people voted for the Conservative candidate in Bury South, many no doubt for the first time.

Some, I suspect, wanted to “Get Brexit Done”. Others may have been repelled by the anti-Semitism of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. Bury South includes areas such as Prestwich and Whitefield, which have large Jewish communities.

Voters may have since changed their mind. But shouldn’t the people be given a say when an MP switches party like this? Shouldn’t the turncoats be required to hold an immediate by-election to see if constituents support their change of heart?

Many people have expressed support for this idea in the past – including as it happens one Christian Wakeford MP. In 2020 he was the co-sponsor of a Private Members Bill that would have enabled the recall of MPs who change party affiliation. Perhaps he has changed his mind on that too?

Some political turncoats have gone on to achieve great things. Britain’s wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, for example, defected from the Conservatives to the Liberal Party in 1904, before defecting back to the Tories 20 years later saying: “Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat.”

But the bad news for Mr Wakeford is the majority of those who switch party sink without trace. Chuka Umunna, for example, was once seen as a rising star in Labour’s ranks and flatteringly described as the British version of Barack Obama.

And former Conservative MP Anna Soubry was on television screens virtually every night and clearly fancied herself as the woman who would single handedly stop Brexit.

But when they defected from their respective parties to form The Independent Group or Change UK or whatever it was they were calling themselves that week, it wasn’t the start of something big, but the beginning of the end. Total electoral humiliation quickly followed.

More often than not, voters punish disloyalty regardless of party affiliation.

And that is not the total of Mr Wakeford’s problems. Politics, particularly on the left, is very tribal and I suspect many Labour Party supporters will view his new-found enthusiasm for socialism unconvincing. Already, the left wing group Momentum has Tweeted that Wakeford “is not welcome in the Labour Party”, claiming he has voted for stricter asylum rules and against tighter rules to combat climate change and against tax dodgers.

And, of course, there is no guarantee that the constituency Labour Party in Bury South will choose Wakeford as their candidate in the next election. They may prefer someone with a longer record of support for Labour’s policies.

So Mr Wakeford could be in for a bumpy and very uncomfortable ride. My advice is that he enjoys his brief moment of fame, or notoriety, because it is unlikely to last long.

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