Marsden returns to Labour
Paul Marsden, who sensationally defected to the Liberal Democrats in 2001, has announced that he is seeking to return to Labour.
Mr Marsden, who is stepping down at this election after revealing he has a shoulder tumour, left the Labour Party in protest at the decision to invade Afghanistan.
On the Liberal Democrat benches he was also a fierce critic of the war in Iraq.
However, Mr Marsden said that he now feels able to rejoin the Labour Party and disagree from within.
Announcing his decision to seek to re-join the party, Mr Marsden said: “I did not agree with the Government’s foreign policy then, and I do not agree with it now but I believe that I can now disagree with that policy from inside the Labour Party which is more tolerant and more willing to listen.”
Denying that he had been motivated by self-interest to re-join, Mr Marsden said that he was concerned that “good constituency Labour MPs” would lose their seats if voters backed the Lib Dems or Conservatives.
Mr Marsden then went on to praise Labour’s investment in public services and urge the public to back the party on May 5.
The return of an ex-Labour member to the fold follows yesterday’s decision by a Labour candidate to defect to the Liberal Democrats.
Stephen Wilkinson, the former Labour candidate for the Ribble Valley, said that he was defecting to the Lib Dems because Labour had become “increasingly authoritarian” and had “failed to safeguard civil liberties”.
