Political defections, commonly known in Westminster parlance as ‘Crossing the Floor’, have been a phenomenon in Parliament since at least the 17^th century. This has either happened en masse, as part of major schisms within pre-existing parties (such as the establishment of the Liberal Unionists in the late 19^th century, or the Social Democratic Party in 1981 and The Independent Group/Change UK in 2019), or on an individual level, motivated either by political issues of national significance, or as a result of local contexts. In the History of Parliament’s Oral History archive, multiple former MPs have recounted their decision to ‘cross the floor’ and change party affiliation. These were frequently extremely difficult decisions, often at huge personal cost, in some instances causing the end of long-term friendships or associations. They also frequently reflected major changes in British politics happening well beyond their immediate experiences.

Some MPs took the difficult decision to leave their party because of local issues, typically involving conflicts with their constituency parties. In 1973, Dick Taverne, the moderate Labour MP for Lincoln (1962-74), resigned the whip after his local party deselected him due to his pro-European views, particularly for voting in favour of the UK joining the European Economic Community (EEC).

Taverne would subsequently resign his seat to trigger a by-election, which he won under the ‘Democratic Labour’ label. It was the first time a candidate other than the Conservatives, Labour or the Liberals had won an English by-election in the post-war era. While Taverne’s parliamentary career after Labour was brief (he was defeated at the October 1974 general election by Labour’s Margaret Beckett), it anticipated later political events, most notably the defection of Labour’s ‘Gang of Four’ and the establishment of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. Taverne himself would join the SDP, and later stand again for Parliament (in Dulwich, unsuccessfully) in 1983, before becoming a Liberal Democrat peer in 1996. In 1977, Reg Prentice (Newham North-East, formerly East Ham North, 1957-79; Daventry, 1979-87) left the Labour Party due to similar local conflicts, but took the far more controversial decision of defecting directly to the Conservatives. He would later change constituencies and serve as a minister in Margaret Thatcher’s first government. Once again, Prentice’s defection partly showcased the various political divisions emerging within the Labour Party at the end of the 1970s.

Other defections were directly motivated by national political issues. In 1976, Scottish MPs Jim Sillars (South Ayrshire, 1970-79; Glasgow Govan, 1988-92) and John Robertson (Paisley, 1961-79) both resigned from Labour to set-up the ‘Scottish Labour Party’ (SLP). They were motivated by the issue of devolution, and frustration with the failure of the incumbent Labour government to establish a devolved Scottish Assembly with substantial economic powers.

While Sillars never regretted his decision to leave Labour and set up the SLP, he did admit that it was a ‘rush to the head’ and not fully thought through.  

Nevertheless, though the SLP ultimately enjoyed little electoral success, and was dissolved by 1981, Sillars and Robertson’s defections reflected the growing influence of Scottish nationalism in British politics, and anticipated the left-wing, pro-European form it would take in the following decades. In 1988 Sillars was returned to Parliament following a by-election in Glasgow Govan, this time standing as a candidate for the Scottish National Party (SNP), on a platform designed to outflank Labour from the left

Like other defections, Nicholson’s departure from the Conservatives reflected wider developments, but was also of notable personal significance, being the member of a very prominent Conservative family.  

Our interviews with both Sillars and Nicholson emphasise the emotional cost of leaving their parties. Party membership is more than a collection of people with shared political outlook; very deep relationships are made and it can be a key part of a politician’s identity.  For Sillars, leaving the Labour Party was ‘like a Catholic leaving the church […] it’s a tremendous trauma, personal trauma’ and the pressure really affected his health (he developed ulcers), his family and marriage. Nicholson described being ‘extremely angry’ with the Conservatives before she left. In part her defection was her response to feeling ‘bullied’ by the whips and a determination to resist that behaviour. Yet it was a decision she reached ‘very sadly, because I am intrinsically a Conservative.’

One of the most unusual political defections recounted in our project was that of Andrew Hunter. Having sat as the Conservative MP for Basingstoke since 1983, Hunter resigned the party whip in 2002, before joining the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in 2004. This was the first time an MP for a mainland British constituency represented a Northern Irish party since T.P. O’Connor, the Irish Nationalist MP for Liverpool Scotland (1885-1929). Hunter’s decision was motivated by conflicts with the Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, particularly over the party’s controversial links to the right-wing Monday Club (which Hunter supported), disillusionment with the Westminster system, and a desire to pursue a political career in Northern Ireland, owing to his long-standing connections to the DUP and wider unionist community, particularly the Orange Order.  

Unsurprisingly, many of these defections sparked outrage among their former colleagues. Sillars would describe the ‘vicious’ reaction he received, while others would describe being accused of opportunism, cowardice or treason. In some instances, the defectors’ new political allies were not always entirely welcoming either. Interestingly, in many cases these defections were explained as not due to any significant change in the views of the MPs themselves, but out of discontent with their former party’s trajectory. Versions of the phrase ‘I didn’t leave the party, the party left me’ was commonly used by Labour defectors to the SDP in the 1980s, as well as by Emma Nicholson in 1995. Indeed, while some of these defections proved permanent, such as in the case of the SDP or Sillars, others were ultimately temporary. In 2016, Emma Nicholson rejoined the Conservative Party ‘with tremendous pleasure’ (BBC News, 10 September 2016), while more recently, Luciana Berger, who left Labour to form The Independent Group/Change UK in 2019 and later joined the Lib Dems, now sits in the Lords as a Labour peer. Both instances suggest that while defections have often been dramatic and bitterly divisive, reconciliation has also occasionally been possible.

Ultimately, stories from our Oral History Project reveal that political defections are often highly personal decisions and experiences, but can also reflect wider political developments, and even play a role in shaping subsequent events.

A.S. & E.P.

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Further Reading

Andy Beckett, ‘Emma Nicholson: Not her sort of party’, Independent, 31 December 1995.

Tom Chidwick, ‘“Return Taverne”: 50 years on from the Lincoln by-election’, Mile End Institute blog, 1 March 2023

Ivor Crewe and Anthony King, SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Geoff Horn, Crossing the Floor: Reg Prentice and the Crisis of British Social Democracy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016).

Ben Jackson, ‘From British Labourism to Scottish Nationalism: Jim Sillars’ Journey’, Scottish Affairs 31:2 (2022), pp.233-239.

Rebecca McKee and Jack Pannell, ‘MPs who change party allegiance’, Institute for Government blog, 12 March 2024.

Emma Peplow and Priscilla Pivatto, The Political Lives of Postwar MPs (London: Bloomsbury, 2020).

Emma Nicholson’s childhood was defined by growing up in a political family. Her father was Sir Godfrey Nicholson, Conservative MP for Morpeth (1931‒1935) and Farnham (1939‒1966) and her mother’s family were also politicians: “rafts of politicians going back a very large number of generations indeed. […] a large number of politicians rolled in and out of the house from time to time […] it was a small house and we just ran in and out and listened.” [Track 1, 00:10:32‒00:11:27]

That last sentence is misleading, for Nicholson’s childhood was also defined by both visual and hearing impairment. “My life went into a black hole when I was 11 or 10 when my eyes went wrong, but in that sense I was rescued by music because that was the only thing I could do that wasn’t reading … it’s just peculiar because it was also something that was also difficult because of my ears. [Track 2, 00:00:00‒ 00:00:17]

She goes on to explain that as a teenager she was diagnosed as having 90 per cent hearing loss.

For those people listening to the recording, and indeed as the person who conducted the interview, it is difficult to understand the nature of Nicholson’s hearing loss and how her sensory perceptions operate. Nicholson refers to this as being a common reaction from those she meets, giving as an example an account of a visit to the Mary Hare School, the largest school for deaf children in the UK, of which she is a Vice President. “Some of the parents complained to the head teacher that I obviously wasn’t deaf, that I was just a politician using it to get publicity, that I couldn’t be deaf because I behaved so normally. [….] I’m neither fish, fowl nor good red herring in a curious sort of way.” [Track 1, 00:28:17‒00:29:04]

The following exchange during the interview about Nicholson’s musical abilities (she studied at the Royal Academy of Music) reminds us of descriptions given by percussionist Evelyn Glennie about the physical sensations she experiences while performing.

Both accounts refer to dimensions of sensory perception that are beyond the grasp of people with unaffected hearing capacity.

On leaving the Royal Academy Nicholson was taken on by International Computers Ltd (ICL) to train as a computer programmer, where she applied her musical aptitude to the tasks they were given: “After about two weeks I suddenly realised that what they were trying to do was to write a fugue and they didn’t know how to write a fugue so I turned their language into my language and addressed it differently … I just turned it into music.” [Track 1, 00:43:20‒ 00:43:56]. Following ICL, Nicholson joined the Save the Children Fund, and it was during her time there that she embarked on the lengthy process of running for Parliament. Her first election campaign was in 1979 as the Conservative candidate in the safe Labour seat of Blyth, and this anecdote about speaking at a public meeting illustrates the difficulties encountered by disabled politicians in the political arena:

Academic studies show that disabled people seeking office are often hesitant to disclose their disabilities, corroborated by Nicholson’s comment that “it’s very difficult for many people […] but because disability is then used against you politically, people don’t want to admit. Why should they? It’s been very difficult admitting to being deaf.” [Track 2, 00:27:05‒00:27:23] However she goes on to say that after she was elected as an MP, “I made it plain immediately on about the first BBC programme that I could so people would be aware that I wasn’t hiding anything, the constituents particularly, I didn’t want to hide anything.” [Track 1, 00:26:30‒00:26:42].

She describes working in the Commons as “impossible, really, really, really difficult.” [Track 2, 00:25:22]. Similarly Jack Ashley (MP for Stoke-on-Trent South, 1966‒1992), wrote about the difficulty of adjusting to parliamentary life after suffering total hearing loss within two years of being elected: “[The Chamber] was transformed into a mysterious, menacing arena where I could be trapped into misunderstanding the arguments and passions which swiftly ebbed and flowed. […] Understanding debates was important, but other occasions, previously taken for granted, would now present major problems. To check a point made in debates I could always read Hansard, but there is no report of those informal discussions in corridors and tea-rooms which are as important to political understanding as formal debates.”

Just as Ashley’s deafness had a huge impact on his ability to navigate certain political spaces, so too did Nicholson’s hearing loss dictate how she operated politically.

After leaving the Commons, Nicholson became a Member of the European Parliament, describing why she was able to work much more effectively in Brussels than in the Westminster. “First of all because of the way the room is presented is different, you’re in a semi-circle so you can see people’s faces much more, not everyone but you can see an awful lot, and secondly because they made me vice-chair of the biggest committee [Foreign Affairs] so I could see people’s faces from the front up on the platform, and thirdly because there is simultaneous translation and so the head of the translation unit came to see me, I asked for him … so he then took the English section very seriously and trained them to fit me, it was hugely helpful, so I had a really good ten years there.” [Track 2, 00:25:52‒00:26:40].

In the interview Nicholson remembers the difficulties she encountered due to her deafness during internal party discussions about forming a coalition government following the May 2010 general election.

She goes on to reflect on her track record as an MP: “Undoubtedly I could have done better but that was almost 100 per cent dependent upon my hearing. I could have done much better had I been able to hear, but had I been able to hear I would have been a different person anyway and I’m not able to hear so within that I did loads.” [Track 5, 00:47:18‒00:47:41]

The History of Parliament’s oral history collection is enriched by Nicholson’s accounts of her disability and its impact on her capacity to operate in different political environments, yet as a deaf person Nicholson is limited in how she can access recordings such as these. This highlights one of the challenges for us as oral historians, making our collections as accessible as possible to users and researchers with hearing loss and other disabilities.

EL

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Find more voices of our archive on the British Library.

Find more blogs from our oral history project here.

Further reading:

Jack Ashley, Journey into Silence (The Bodley Head: 1973).

Elizabeth Evans & Stefanie Reher, ‘Disability and political representation: Analysing the obstacles to elected office in the UK’, International Political Science Review, 43 (5), (2022), pp. 697‒712. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512120947458

Emma Nicholson, Secret Society: Inside – and Outside – the Conservative Party (Indigo: 1996).

Brad Rakerd, ‘On Making Oral Histories More Accessible to Persons with Hearing Loss’, The Oral History Review, 40 (1), (2013) pp. 67‒74. https://doi.org/10.1093/ohr/oht022

Before 1997, there were relatively few female MPs – the numbers hover between twenty and thirty before increasing in both 1987 and 1992. Despite these small numbers, we still have some great interviews with former women MPs as part of our national oral history project. Working with the British Library, we plan to interview as many former Members of Parliament as possible on their careers and political experiences. Here are some of the experiences of women MPs in Parliament during the 1970s and 1980s from our oral history archive.

For some of our interviewees, discrimination began at selection. Emma Nicholson (now Baroness Nicholson), Conservative and Liberal Democrat MP 1987-1997, remembers being warned off by two leading women in her own party. In addition, the application form to be a Conservative party candidate specifically asked what her wife’s maiden name was! Others, such as Llin Golding (now Baroness Golding), Labour MP 1986-2001, had trouble winning over some of her male colleagues when she stood to be Labour candidate in Newcastle-under-Lyme:

On arrival in Westminster, many (although by no means all) of our interviewees felt they were entering a male-dominated culture. Going into the ‘smoking room’ was something several MPs discussed, such as Conservative MP Jill Knight (now Baroness Knight) – no longer considered a ‘nice girl’ because she popped in for a drink. Her fellow Conservative MP Elizabeth Peacock (1983-1997) had this response to the question: ‘Were you conscious that you were entering quite a male-dominated world?’:

Labour MP Alice Mahon (1987-2005) agreed that the culture was sexist and remembered being shocked at what she felt was a ‘class divide’. In her interview, however, she also spoke about the number of her fellow female MPs she admired during her time in Parliament – women such as Mo Mowlam, Betty Boothroyd and Ann Clwyd. Others, such as Janet Fookes (now Baroness Fookes), Conservative MP 1970-97, did not experience sexism:

If anything it was an advantage, as you certainly stuck out. I think there were 17, 19 women MPs all told, so your face would become familiar… and I didn’t find anybody treated me nastily – on the contrary, I found people very welcoming.

Some were determined to change things. Maria Fyfe, Labour MP 1987-2001, felt it was “incredible” she was only the tenth female Labour MP in Scotland: “I was thinking, this has got to change, we’ve got to have more women in parliament, and I was determined to be part of achieving that.” The numbers did indeed rise – jumping to 120 in 1997 (although Maria Fyfe threatened to sue anyone who called her one of ‘Blair’s babes’!) Many felt, despite the difficulties still faced by women (particularly in juggling politics and family life), that it is now easier for women to become MPs and that things are very different from when these women began their political careers.

EP

For more on our oral history project, see our website.

The above interviews are, or will shortly be, available to listen to in the British Library. To find out more, search their Sound Archive.

For more on Parliament Week, see their website.