Read Our Monthly Magazine
And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system
When Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless defected to Nigel Farage’s UKIP party in 2014, both men resigned their seats and fought by-elections.
At the following press conference, Farage made much of the principle of resigning one’s seat to force a by-election after defecting, describing it as “brave and noble.”
In 2022, when Conservative Christian Wakeford MP defected from the Conservatives to Labour, Farage doubled down on this view, saying it was “disgraceful” not to call a by-election. “It is a complete insult to voters for MPs to have the arrogance to think that it’s them they voted for,” he told GB News.
But when MPs debated a 130,000-strong petition calling for by-elections for MPs who defect on Monday night, Farage and his Reform MPs – including several high-profile Conservative defectors – were nowhere to be seen.
Following former Conservative deputy chairman Lee Anderson’s switch to Reform ahead of the 2024 general election, Farage decided not to require by-elections for his switchers.
None of the subsequent wave of Conservative defectors — including sitting MPs Danny Kruger, Robert Jenrick, Andrew Rosindell and Suella Braverman — have been asked to seek fresh mandates from their constituents.
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
According to campaign group Best for Britain’s tracker, there have been 121 total defections from the Conservatives to Reform (including councillors and senior staffers) so far. Very few with seats to defend appear to have done the “noble” thing and called by-elections under their new ticket.
Reform has also been actively soliciting further defections. Farage set a deadline of the 7th May local elections for any elected politician wishing to join the party, writing in The Telegraph: “Now is the time to decide: do you want to go down with the failed politics of the past, or go forward with Reform UK — the party of hope, optimism and change?”
In a Westminster Hall debate on the petition on Monday, Minister and Labour chair Anna Turley told MPs: “While I personally share the view of, I think, many of the petitioners from certain constituencies that defecting from the Conservatives to Reform is an awful thing to do—I notice that none of the hon. Members concerned is here today—I am not sure that it reaches the bar of requiring a by-election.”
She pointed, however, to the “whopping” 23 by-elections in just four and a half years prior to 2024.
“Those by-elections were caused by lobbying scandals, tractor videos, sexual misconduct, bullying—a horrible track record of MPs falling short of the standards that the public rightly expect of them. It is absolutely right that, in such circumstances, we have by-elections and the public are able to get rid of their MPs in that way.”
Don’t miss a story
She and other MPs in the (sparsely-attended) debate – save for Conservative MP Robbie Moore – backed the view “long-standing constitutional principle” in Britain, most famously put forward by Edmund Burke, that MPs should “not simply be a delegate of either party or populist opinion.” A by-election on the basis of a defection would “undermine that principle,” Turley said.
Turley argued that if MPs must lose their seat the moment they leave their party, “we would fundamentally alter the nature of our democracy. We would also shift from a system in which an MP’s first responsibility is to their constituents, to one where, once elected, they are accountable to their party’s leaders in Westminster.”
This would, she said, “not make our parliamentary democracy stronger.”
There is a limited mechanism to remove MPs during the course of a Parliament. Under the Recall of MPs Act 2015, by-elections are triggered by custodial sentences, suspension from the House, or false expenses claims.
“Some have argued that we should add defection to that list, but I strongly urge against that. The core philosophy of recall is that it is triggered by conduct, not a change in values or even, dare I say it, political ambition,” Turley added.
The Labour Chair, like most parties the beneficiaries of occasional defections, said it is “part of political life.”
The Elections Watchdog Doesn’t Know Where Reform UK’s Crypto Donations Are Coming From
The UK’s electoral watchdog tells Byline Times it wants tough new legal powers to prevent overseas donors from secretly bankrolling British political parties
Lib Dem parliamentary leader Lisa Smart MP did not throw her weight behind automatic by-elections for MPs who defect, but instead said: “The disillusionment that voters are experiencing points to something larger—a fundamental problem with how our democratic system currently works.”