What a difference a year makes. This week marks the anniversary of the split in which seven Labour MPs resigned from the party to sit as The Independent Group.
Then, media commentators made breathless comparisons to the ‘Gang of Four’ who split from Labour to form the Social Democratic Party in 1981 – although the 2019 splitters had nothing like the same stature. Now, every single one of the ‘Gang of Seven’ have lost their seats – along with all the other Labour and Conservative MPs who subsequently joined the group (and in some cases, left it again).
The Independent Group cycled through its own series of splits and reincarnations so dizzyingly quickly that it became difficult to keep up. It registered as a political party under the name ChangeUK, renamed itself The Independent Group for Change after a legal dispute with Change.org, then splintered after a woeful showing in the European elections – with two of its MPs defecting to the Lib Dems and four sitting as ‘The Independents’, three of whom later joined the Lib Dems as well. It finally dissolved itself after the 2019 general election, in which its three remaining MPs all lost their seats – Anna Soubry getting the highest vote share at a dismal 8.5%, and Chris Leslie coming fourth in his own seat with just 3.6%.
