Member Defections: Automatic By-elections

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore]

That is my point. While a lot of us, as advocates of constituency areas, do our best day in, day out, advocating on behalf of our constituents and campaigning on the local issues that matter to give us the biggest advantage possible by building up our authenticity on those issues, a good proportion of the electorate vote based on the political party with which the candidates are associated.

In 2019, a good proportion of the electorate could not stand the possibility of a Labour Government and voted to get Brexit done, which we advocated for. I know from conversations on the doorstep that there was an element of the electorate who had never voted Conservative before, but who decided to vote for us in 2019 based on the national offering. That builds into my point that, whenever an individual defects—as happened recently north of the border, with the defection of a Conservative Member of the Scottish Parliament to the Liberal Democrats—a by-election should be triggered. It will be interesting to see what the Liberal Democrat policy is on that.

Trust is at stake, because too often disillusionment builds up among the wider electorate, and defections exaggerate that.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South) (Lab)]

I was following the hon. Gentleman’s arguments closely and agreeing with them until he got to the point about Prime Ministers, because is it not a consistent position that if a hon. Member changes their political party there should be a by-election, therefore if there is a change in leader, as the Conservatives have got into the habit of doing, there should be a general election?

[Robbie Moore]

I absolutely take the view that a defection at the local constituency level should trigger a by-election, which will ultimately restore the voters’ ability to decide who they want to represent them, whether that is the individual who has changed political party or someone else. When there is a change in the leader of any political party, it is up to the MPs of that party to determine whether that individual represents the party in the role of its leader. That applies to all political parties. The reason is that when an individual goes to vote at the ballot box, they are predominantly voting for two things: the individual who represents them at a local level, and the political party. The name of the leader of that party is not on the ballot paper; the name of the party is.

I believe that there is a difference, regardless of who is in charge politically at a national level, between a change of leader and a change in the direct relationship between the constituent and the individual who represents them while standing on behalf of a political party. As I say, the name of the leader of the political party is not on the ballot paper, so I think there is a difference.

[Graham Stringer]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving away again and I do not wish to push this point too far, because I personally do not think that there should be a general election if the ruling party changes its leader. However, the thrust of his argument was that what is in people’s minds when they vote is the political party and the name of the leader; he said it was about the difference between Boris Johnson and the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). If that is important, and the leader changes, and so does the party’s political programme—that relates to the wording on the ballot paper of the political party and has been there since the Representation of the People Act 1969—I think there is a solid argument for holding a general election. It is not an argument that I completely agree with, but I would be interested to hear his response to it.

[Robbie Moore]

I thank the hon. Member for that point, but my point is that when a general election takes place, the individual voter casts their vote for an individual associated with a political party, which has a mandate—if it gets into power—based on a manifesto. The party leader’s name is not on the ballot paper. It is the manifesto that is associated with that political party. I do feel there is a difference.

I am strongly of the view that if an individual Member of Parliament associated with a political party decides to change course and stand for a different political party —crosses the Floor of the House—an automatic by-election should be triggered, which ultimately gives their constituents the right to choose. That is slightly different from the debate about political leadership, because a party leader’s name is not on the ballot paper; the name of the party is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lisa Smart]

I could not be more delighted to go into details about different voting systems. The hon. Gentleman will know that AV is a preferential system, not a proportional one. I am talking about proportional representation. AV would have been a better system than first past the post, but a proportionate system would be even better. It has long been in the Liberal Democrat manifesto that that would mean fairer representation and more people having their say.

[Graham Stringer]

I am sure that everybody in this room is familiar with the arguments for and against PR. In moving the motion, the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) gave a very balanced speech. There was only one thing that I thought was unbalanced: the argument that somehow there would be less tactical voting in a PR system. A PR system is actually set up and designed for tactical voting. I would be grateful if the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) gave an opinion on that.

[Lisa Smart]

Many people, when talking about tactical voting, mean voting to stop somebody: a person has a preferred party or candidate, but lends their vote to somebody else to stop a third party they really do not want getting in. There are many different proportional systems—indeed, we have different systems in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland—and I would happily debate many of them, but I think it would test the patience of this Chamber if I were to get further into the weeds about my favourites. I recommend the Liberal Democrats for Electoral Reform panel from the Liberal Democrat spring conference, where a number of us spent the weekend. I very much enjoyed being on that panel, which did get into the weeds. It might not be to everyone’s taste, but I assure hon. Members that it was a packed house with standing room only.

I will move on to the need to change and reform the House of Lords. It is simply indefensible that unelected peers continue to make laws for life in a modern democracy. The Liberal Democrats are committed to replacing it with a chamber that has a proper democratic mandate—one that reflects the country it serves, rather than the Prime Minister of the day. In a general election, the power sits with electors over who their MPs are. If they do not like something that their MP has done, they can choose somebody else at the next general election. Voters have precisely no power to do so with Members of the House of Lords. There are peers currently sitting in the House of Lords who have moved parties, and there is no mechanism to remove them for doing so.

Thirdly, the ministerial code must be enshrined in law. The fact that scandal after scandal has come out of previous Governments, and indeed this one, shows why there should be a set of legally enforceable expectations for Ministers and those in positions of power. Without that in law, we cannot guarantee that they will act with integrity, especially given that former Conservative Ministers are leaving the party rather than allowing themselves to be held to account. Right now, Ministers who act corruptly or behave improperly face, at worst, a quiet resignation and a comfortable future elsewhere. That is not accountability. Enshrining the ministerial code in legislation would mean that there are real consequences for those who abuse the public trust.

The recipient of a number of these defections is Reform UK, but it is not a party of insurgents challenging the establishment. It is more accurately described as a scrapyard for the very people who were the establishment and failed. Rather than accepting the public’s verdict on their failures in government, those politicians are seeking refuge in a party that wants to make us all less safe by dragging the UK out of the European convention on human rights, asking for payment for NHS services and platforming conspiracy theorists. Although by-elections for those who defect may not be mandated, the voters in those seats have the ultimate power—the power of their vote, come the next election—and I hope they will use it at every available opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Charlie Dewhirst]

I absolutely accept that there are many different voting systems that one could employ. Those with a mix between a party list and a constituency list create a two-tier system. What if one of the individuals on the party list were to defect? How would that be resolved? It would create a system even more challenging than the one we already have, which has a direct link between local people and their representative in the House of Commons.

One of my concerns is that making the continuation of that representation conditional on membership of a political party might start to weaken that link, which is a strength of the first-past-the-post system, but there is also the question of how it would be dealt with under the varied systems that we have across the range of PR options. Making representation conditional in that way would reduce Members to delegates of their party rather than individuals chosen to represent all their constituents, regardless of who they voted for—a point that is hugely important to us all. As we have discussed, the threat of a by-election could be used to silence Members who feel compelled by their conscience to go against their party.

As I just underlined, that is where the challenge about how to legally define an independent comes in. I am very sympathetic to the point that those who go independent should not face a by-election, but those who move from one established party to another should. The danger is that introducing mandatory by-elections would encourage Members to favour loyalty to the party over serving the interests of their constituents, particularly if they believed that those two things were in conflict.

Of course, defection is only one means by which a Member can change their party allegiance. While the petition speaks only of defection to another party, there are other methods: resignation, the withdrawal of the Whip, parties’ restructuring and so on are all means by which a Member may choose no longer to represent the party for which they were originally elected. I am sure that no Member believes that every Liberal Democrat should have been forced to stand in a by-election when the Liberals and the Social Democrats merged.

This is not the first time that the House has considered the issue of Members changing political allegiance. Previous Governments and Parliaments have wrestled with how to reconcile the independence of Members with the expectations of modern party politics, and in each instance they concluded that the independence of Parliament and its Members should not be constrained through major constitutional change.

[Graham Stringer]

I am rather surprised that nobody has mentioned that there is a constitutional precedent for by-elections when situations change. It used to be the case that when Members were appointed to the Cabinet, they had to face a by-election. In my city, Manchester, there was a famous by-election when Winston Churchill had to stand again, and he lost. I think that was just before the first world war. Then, a change of circumstances meant a by-election. It is a very serious change of circumstances if somebody changes political parties. I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s view on that constitutional precedent.

[Charlie Dewhirst]

Things have changed over time, and I dread to think how many by-elections we might have had in recent years had we needed one every time someone was appointed to the Cabinet. I suspect that would have cost the public purse something quite significant. In the period of which the hon. Member speaks, there was a slower churn of those in the Cabinet, and there was not quite the political turmoil that we have seen in recent years, which would make such a situation challenging. It is a fair point, though, because the change of circumstance in that situation is far less than the change of circumstance of moving from one party to another.

As I have said, it is not the principle of the issue that concerns me, but the practicality. If Parliament did introduce legislation, it would have to be absolutely spot on and watertight, to ensure that it did not degrade the link between individual Members of Parliament and their constituencies, and that the party system did not become more empowered through any such change. That is my principal concern.

Our constitution and political system have drawn their strength from the respect we have for tried and tested convention, and we must always be wary of the danger of rushed constitutional change and unintended consequences. We need only to look at the recent past to see how previous attempts to enforce rigidity within our system have failed. Most notably, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which was seen as an important tool during the coalition Government, ultimately was viewed to have failed and was rightly repealed during the last Parliament.

The independence of Parliament and of an individually elected representative to do what they believe is in the best interests of their constituents is one of the longest-standing conventions in our political system. While I sympathise with the frustrations of the petitioners and understand their desire to see the proposed change enacted, I believe we would be unwise to surrender that independence.