Four of the most consequential political defections in British history

The hitherto Conservative MP for Dover, Natalie Elphicke, has sensationally defected to the Labour party. This has sent shockwaves through Westminster, as Elphicke was a figure on the right of the Conservative party.

In addition to embarrassing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, this defection has caused significant disquiet within Labour, where many MPs and activists feel her prior stances on a range of issues jar with Labour policies.

Elphicke’s move came just days after Daniel Poulter, Conservative MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, had also defected to Labour. But these two are far from the first to cross the aisle in this way.

We don’t yet know if Elphicke’s move will be consequential in the long term and she isn’t standing in the next election, so this could be little more than a short sharp shock. But history shows us defections can lead to monumental change. These are four such examples.

1. The Peelites leave the Tories

Robert Peel was prime minister from December 1834 to April 1835 and later from August 1841 to June 1846. He is arguably one of the most significant figures in British political history. Prior to his premiership, he served as home secretary and founded the London Metropolitan Police (hence the colloquial name “Bobbies”). But he was also instrumental in the creation of the modern Conservative Party from its predecessor, the Tory Party.

Peel was a believer in free trade at a time when many in his party were protectionists who sought to keep prices high for domestic producers. For his backbenchers, the most sacred of these tariffs were the corn laws, restrictions on grain imports that benefited landowners.

In the autumn of 1845, a potato blight swept across Ireland destroying successive potato crops – leading to a famine that ultimately killed approximately one million people. Peel argued that this necessitated the repeal of the corn laws, which he did in 1846.

Peel’s opponents within his party believed – likely correctly – that Peel was cynically using the famine as a pretext to justify repeal. The parliamentary party split and Peel resigned.

A third of the party continued to back Peel but, over time, this rump dwindled to a handful. In 1859, these members coalesced with the Whig and Radical MPs into a single Liberal party under Lord Palmerston.

2. Oswald Mosley: Conservative, Labour, fascist

Oswald Mosley is best remembered as the leader of the New Party, which became the British Union of Fascists. In 1936, he and his Blackshirts famously attempted to march through the London’s East End, where they were met by Jewish, socialist, communist and trade unionist counter-protestors. The resulting clash, known as the the Battle of Cable Street, saw 150 people arrested and an estimated 175 injured.

The battle was the culmination of a significant journey for Mosley, who moved between party affiliations on multiple occasions. In 1918, he successfully stood for parliament in Harrow as a Conservative but soon became disenchanted with the party, and opposed to its policy regarding Ireland. He reviled the violence of the Black and Tans – typically former British servicemen recruited into the Royal Irish Constabulary – against the Irish public.

In 1920, Mosley crossed the floor and sat as an independent MP. In 1923, the Conservatives fell far short of a majority in parliament. Labour became the second largest party and soon formed a government. Mosley decried his fellow Conservatives as a “panic stricken plutocracy” and joined Labour two months later.

In 1929, Mosley joined the government formed by Labour leader Ramsey MacDonald formed with the support of the Conservatives, and was tasked with tackling unemployment. The Great Depression hit soon after and he drew up the Mosley memorandum, a nationalist document highly critical of laissez-faire economics. The ideas were rejected and Mosley resigned from the cabinet in May 1930. His rhetoric increasingly turned fascistic, calling for an “iron spirit and will”, and by 1931 he had formed the New Party.

3. Winston Churchill rats and re-rats

Perhaps the most famous parliamentarian and prime minister of all time, Winston Churchill, was not always the titan of second world war Conservative politics we remember him as. He first entered parliament as an MP in 1900 as a Conservative, having unsuccessfully stood for election the year before. However, he had an uneasy relationship with his party as it adopted protectionist economic policies, and he was an advocate of free trade.

In 1904 the government brought forward the aliens bill which aimed to reduce the flow of Jewish migrants, fleeing persecution from the Russian empire, from entering the country. Churchill opposed the bill and on May 31 he crossed the floor and joined the Liberals. However, his time with the Liberal party was not to last. Churchill lost his seat in the 1922 general election.

In 1924, Churchill made a deal with the Tory leader Stanley Baldwin and stood once more as a Conservative candidate. In the words of his future assistant private secretary, Jock Colville: “They had said you could rat but you couldn’t re-rat”. Churchill had nevertheless managed it. As we all know, he still went on to lead Britain through the existential crisis of the second world war.

4. The gang of four leaves Labour

In 1981, the Labour Party under Michael Foot decided to change the rules on party leadership elections, notably by giving 40% of the votes to trade unions.

This, in addition to other leftward shifts, appalled members of the Labour right. Four key people – David Owen, Shirley Williams, William Rodgers and Roy Jenkins – drafted the Limehouse declaration, expressing their opposition to Foot’s approach.

This “gang of four” soon gained the support of additional MPs and on March 2, 12 Labour MPs resigned the party whip to form the new Social Democratic Party (SDP). In all, 13 Labour MPs and one Conservative MP joined the party. By the 1983 general election, the SDP had joined forces with the Liberal Party to form the SDP-Liberal alliance.

The alliance won a significant share of the popular vote in the 1983 general election – some 25.4%. This contributed to a Conservative landslide for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, cementing her authority and ability to reshape the country.

Chris Smith is a member of the Labour Party and the UCU.