Bury South MP Christian Wakeford has defected from the Conservatives to Labour, telling Boris Johnson “you and the Conservative Party as a whole have shown themselves incapable of offering the leadership and government this country deserves”
by my calculations this is the first Tory MP to jump ship to Labour since Quentin Davies in 2007
before that Shaun Woodward shifted from Labour-Tory in 1999
John Bercow joined Labour in 2021 but was no longer an MP
before that Shaun Woodward shifted from Labour-Tory in 1999
John Bercow joined Labour in 2021 but was no longer an MP
not a co-incidence that the announcement at 11.45 (which @SebastianEPayne scooped just beforehand) is just before prime minister's questions
the Tory majority in Bury South is just 402 votes as of the 2019 general election:
Conservative - 22,034
Labour - 22,632
Conservative - 22,034
Labour - 22,632
Wakeford has crossed the floor and is now sat behind Keir Starmer as #pmqs begins
here is his letter to the PM 
Corbynista campaign group Momentum is not happy:
"Christian Wakeford has voted with this hard-right Tory Government almost 400 times in just two years.
He (Wakeford) should be nowhere near the Labour Party, and the decision by Starmer to accept him is an insult to millions"
"Christian Wakeford has voted with this hard-right Tory Government almost 400 times in just two years.
He (Wakeford) should be nowhere near the Labour Party, and the decision by Starmer to accept him is an insult to millions"
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