At the time of writing, 11 MPs have joined the Independent Group: eight from Labour and three from the Conservatives.
They haven’t yet formed a political party but they are a fascinating grouping who have little in common except starting off as Remainers. But have you noticed that there are seven women and just four men involved so far (63%, whereas Parliament as a whole is 32% female. That’s a big difference (although based on a small sample))? I think that there may be some significance in this. The leading drivers for Brexit have been men, some of them less-than-honourable men (and Theresa May). But also, I would conjecture that women are a bit less tribal and a bit better at working with ‘the other side’ than are men.
The three Tory women, Heidi Allen, Sarah Wollaston and Anna Soubry are, to my mind (as a Labour Party member remember) of a higher calibre than the eight Labour break-aways. They include two of the most impressive Conservative MPs in parliament and I am growing to like the feisty Anna Soubry too.
The grouping doesn’t have a huge amount of environmental expertise, but then, any 11 MPs plucked at random wouldn’t look any better, actually rather worse. And they look more like a group of refugees from oppression rather than a group of like-minded, like-thinking politicians.
I’ve just checked and see that my annual payment to Labour of £69 is due in late July. I’ll leave it for a while to see whether I want to remain a member or not, and whether I want to join any other party or not, or whether I will increase or decrease my annual payment. Five months is a very long time in politics – and the next five months will certainly be eventful.
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Deck chairs. Titanic.
Hi Mark
Anna Soubry’s enviomental credentials certainly aren’t great, she would have voted for the repeal of the fox hunting ban, she was in favour of the badger cull and of fracking, bearing this in mind, it would be interesting to know where she stands on Dgs’s. In 2010 she supported the sell-off of the Royal Mail, despite receiving some 300 cards from her constituents urging her to oppose it, she later told the commons that none of the 700 RM workers had written to her to oppose it. After complaints from the CWU she had to admit she was wrong. She supports austerity.
Ian – I agree, although because of the whipping system that will apply to almost all Tory MPs whether they agree or not.
Being independent will allow all these MPs to do whatever they want, whatever they believe in, and be judged accordingly with no place to hide.
Mark She said she supported austerity!
Paul – I’m not a great fan, but let’s see what she says now. The gang of 11 is a mixed bag. I’m not sure they’lla gree about much.
Mm the Independent group, a private corporation who may tell us where some of their finance comes from. None of their members will stand in a by election to allow their constituents to decide if they support them but they want a second “Peoples Vote ” even though that was never part of the Brexit process.
Not having checked but I guess most will have voted for the UK’s imperialist wars and are pro austerity for the least well off and extra gravy for the 1% so what’s not to like?