Labour defection rumours increase
Rumours that Labour are to suffer a parliamentary defection have intensified over the weekend.
Labour MP Jane Griffiths has reportedly told colleagues that she will cross the floor to join the Conservatives, unless the Prime Minister personally appeals for her to stay.
Ms Griffiths entered the Commons in 1997 as one of “Blair’s Babes” and she seemed set for a high profile career.
In February 2004 she became the first Labour MP for more than a decade to be deselected by her local party. She was dropped in favour of local councillor, Tony Page after a bitter internal feud with fellow Reading MP Martin Salter.
Following the deselection, she gave an inflammatory interview to the Mail of Sunday in which she detailed accounts of drunkenness and lewd behaviour among fellow MPs and Ministers.
In March she admitted that she had held discussions with both the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives.
If she did cross the floor to the Conservatives it would be the second only defection from Labour direct to the Tories. The first, Reg Prentice in 1977, signalled the rise of Thatcherism.
Under Mr Blair’s leadership two Tory MPs have crossed in the opposite direction, with Alan Howarth and Shawn Woodward joining Labour.
One Labour MP, Paul Marsden, defected from Labour to the LibDems in November 2001.
Though it is believed unlikely that Mr Blair will personally intervene to ask Ms Griffith to stay as she has already been deselected, any move on her part would cause political difficulties for the Prime Minister.
A worse case scenario for the Labour Party would be if Ms Griffiths resigned, leaving the party facing a third by-election in addition to those in Leicester and Birmingham. Reading East, Ms Griffiths’ constituency, was considered a safe Tory seat before the 1997 victory.
