As Tory after Tory defects to Nigel Farage, I say this: be careful which turncoats you wish for | Simon Hart

As a chief whip, I came to know a thing or two about those who flee their parties. Often they are more trouble than they are worthNigel Farage is storing up trouble by welcoming yet another tranche of Conservative defectors to Reform UK’s ranks. I should know. When I was chief whip, nothing united a party quite as much as a defection. Old enemies call a truce from their daily hostilities to turn all the available ire on the traitor in their midst. Ask Shaun Woodward, the former Conservative MP for Witney who legged it to Labour in 1999 while making all sorts of rather grand demands in the process. He was blackballed by his original party for such a flagrant act of opportunism, and hated by his new family as someone never to be entirely trusted.I remember the shock and anger when entering the chamber in April 2024 to see Dan Poulter seated uncomfortably behind Keir Starmer for PMQs. Not only had we had no warning, but as he had barely even attended parliament in anyone’s recent memory, we weren’t quite sure whether Labour would know who he was. Only weeks later, Dover diehard Natalie Elphicke pulled the same stunt and also promptly disappeared from view. How she could have left friends and whips a few hours earlier with the impression that she was voting with the government that day, I am not quite sure. It seems that such niceties matter little to the “defector community”, any more than loyalty to the party, volunteers, voters and supporters who gave them such a privileged position in the first place. Why should Reform expect any better?Simon Hart was government chief whip from 2022 to 2024, and is author of Ungovernable Continue reading...