Labour needs a better response than the TIGers should resign and fight by-elections
If LAB had demanded that Jared O'Mara quit his Sheffield Hallam seat then its calls for the seven to resign and have by-elections would carry more weight.
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) February 18, 2019
Can we please stop repeating the lie that it's a "convention" for defecting MPs to trigger a by-election?
Since WW2, 69 MPs have switched from 1 party to another (not including party mergers, withdrawals of the whip, & sitting as an Independent).
Only 4 triggered by-elections.
— Dr Seth Thévoz (@SAThevoz) February 19, 2019
One of the problems for Labour in pursuing its TIGers should quit seats and fight by-elections argument is that there’s a whole host of examples of switchers to them from the Tories and others where the MP involved has not done this and there were no calls from Labour that they should.
There is a case, the Preston by-election but you have to go back 90 years to 1929.
The idea that there is some sort of convention about this is without foundation as the Seth Thévoz Tweet above shows.
This week’ split and the threat of more, possibly, to come, has been a massive challenge to Corbyn and his close team. He’s not been helped by the responses of his elected deputy, Tom Watson, who has a realisation of the damage this is doing to the party.
Whether switching MPs should resign their seats is another matter. Looking back at where this has been done the objective to keep the media focus on the issues involved as with Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless in 2014.
As a lover of by-election then the more reasons to have them the better.