New Independent Group of MPs hold first meeting to decide leadership

So, who WILL be leader? New Independent Group of MPs hold their first meeting to decide who will take the helm (but Chuka Umunna insists they are NOT a political party… yet)

  • Eleven MPs meet a week after the first defections kicked off a political storm 
  • Eight former Tories sit down with three Tories in the new centrist collective
  • Chuka Umunna said: ‘I want to play the biggest role in this group’

They quit two of the traditional political parties saying they wanted to give the nation something fresh and counter the stale status quo.

But there was a very traditional look to the surroundings as 11 MPs who sensationally quit Labour and the Conservatives in fury at their respective political directions held their first official group meeting today.

The Independent Group (TIG), chose the plush, wood-panelled surroundings of One Great George Street, a conference venue within a stone’s throw of Parliament, for their debut get-together.

It came a week after seven Labour politicians decided they had finally had enough of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and launched a centrist breakaway from what had been their political home for decades over Brexit and inaction over anti-Semitism.

The Independent Group, consisting of eight former Labour MPs and three ex-Tories, met for the first time on Monday in the very plush surroundings of a Westminster  conference venue popular with politicians

Luton MP Gavin Shuker was flanked by Heidi Allen (left) and Luciana Berger at the first meeting at One Great George Street in Westminster

They were joined in the following days by an eighth Labour MP and a trio of dispirited Tories who walked out on Theresa May in horror at what Brexit was doing to her party.

The TIG members were all smiles as they posed for pictures in One Great George Street, with the three former Tories spread out on three of the four sides of the table, flanked by their more left-wing colleagues.

Luton South MP Gavin Shuker appeared to be in the central seat, flanked by Liverpool Wavertree’s Luciana Berger and South Cambridgeshire’s Heidi Allen as they posed for pictures before the meeting went ahead behind closed doors.


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Broxtowe MP Anna Soubry sitting with Ilford MP Mike Gapes. Ms Soubry was loudly outspoken about the entryism of Ukip members into the Conservatives, saying it was becoming more right wing after resigning

Ms Soubry and a beaming Mr Gapes were sat together with Ann Coffey, the Stockport MP who was one of the more surprising choices among the defecting Labour rebels

Former Totnes Tory Srah Wollaston was flanked by Enfield North’s Joan Ryan, who quit Labour over anti-Semitism, and Streatham’s Chuka Umunna, who at the weekend said he wanted to play the ‘biggest role’ in the group

Chuka Umunna, who has been hotly tipped to TIG should it become more than a band of rebels, was sat to Ms Allen’s right.

The former shadow minister insisted at the weekend that they were not yet a party or a movement, with a fully worked out programme for government, but simply a group of independent MPs.

Asked on Sunday whether he would be the group’s leader Mr Umunna gave Sky’s Sophie Ridge a smile before saying: ‘I’m not’, before adding, ‘I’m clear I want to play the biggest role in this group.

‘One of the things about the way we operate is a recognition we’re all leaders.’

TIG members have said they are united by a shared “non-tribal” belief in “progressive” values combined with deep unhappiness at the directions their former parties had taken, particularly on Brexit.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Jo Swinson said today she was expecting to meet with the new group later this week, saying her party was ready to “work with” its MPs.

But she played down suggestions of a formal pact between the parties, insisting she had no fixed blueprint for how they should co-operate.

“I think we need to be working together with the Independent Group MPs but we need to find a 2019 way of doing that and I’m open-minded about how that looks,” Ms Swinson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Asked if that could include Lib Dems agreeing not to stand candidates against the 11 TIG MPs, Ms Swinson said: “I don’t think we should be taking any of these things off the table.”

She added: “I will welcome anyone to the Liberal Democrats who shares my liberal values, and obviously I want more people to join the Lib Dems.

“But I am not going to be petty about this and suggest that I am not going to work with somebody who shares many of my values just because for whatever reason they don’t feel that they can join my party.”

 

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