SIX of Change UK's 11 MPs, including spokesman Chuka Umunna and interim leader Heidi Allen have quit after the fledgling party's disappointing performance in last month's EU elections, when it failed to get a single MEP elected.
The party announced that it now had just five MPs and a new party leader, the former Conservative business minister and anti-Brexit campaign er Anna Soubry.
Ms Soubry said she was "deeply disappointed" over news of the departing MPs who said they would be "returning to supporting each other as an independent grouping of MPs".
READ MORE: Change UK: Who are they and how are they linked to the Independent Group ?
The others remaining are the former Labour MPs Mike Gapes, Chris Leslie, Joan Ryan and Ann Coffey.
A joint statement from the six leaving members said their priority was now "to provide collegiate leadership to bring people together in the national interest".
"We know the landscape will continue to shift within the political environment and have concluded that by returning to sit as independents, we will be best placed to work cross-party and respond flexibly.
"We wish our colleagues well as they continue to build Change UK."
In a statement, Soubry said: “I’m deeply disappointed that at such a crucial time in British politics our former colleagues have made this decision.
“Now is not the time to walk away, but instead to roll up our sleeves and stand up for the sensible mainstream centre ground which is unrepresented in British politics today.
“Going forward, the Change UK MPs are as determined to fix Britain’s broken politics as we were when we left our former parties.”
Change UK - formerly known as the Independent Group - was formed earlier this year by MPs who quit Labour and the Conservatives.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel