To leave feels unthinkable but to stay would be worse. Like ending a marriage or quitting a job you loved, abandoning one’s political tribe is never easy. But after months of agonising, the final break often brings with it a giddy feeling of relief. Odd, then, that there was so little sense of catharsis in Christian Wakeford’s “welcome to Labour” photocall with Keir Starmer, in which the defecting MP for Bury South looked like a man whose sleepless nights were just beginning.
Perhaps he was worrying about his former colleagues scrolling furiously through their phones for old text messages with which to embarrass him. Or maybe he was anticipating a furious denunciation from the left, the minute they checked his voting record. (Young Labour swiftly obliged, tweeting that he shouldn’t be allowed to join the party, while Laura Pidcock – who lost what had been a safe seat for Labour in 2019 – tweeted that her former colleagues’ cheers for a defector swelling their ranks were a “deep insult to all of those fighting this disgraceful government”.)
