The Labour Party has already gone through the process of selecting a candidate for that seat. If she’d defected before that had happened she could have put herself forward for reselection (and there’s a different process for that), but that ship has long sailed. The candidate is the candidate, and it’s not her.
There are hardly any seats left which haven’t selected a Labour candidate at this point. All of the safe seats were done ages ago. The handful that are left vacant are all the absolute no-hopers for Labour where nobody really cares who the candidate is because they’re not going to win anyway.
Any defectors hoping to go that route have long since missed the boat. They’d have had to have jumped ship a year or two ago.
Point scoring against the government. I’m not knowledgeable on this so please could you give me an example of when a defecting MP has been given a safe seat?
Copying from a comment I made when the last one defected, it’s really Labour accepts a free seat in the commons. Being principled is nice but ultimately meaningless if you have no power to enact those principles.
I think it really shows how far right Labour has shifted that they even accepted the move
Surely she won’t be allowed to stand for Labour at the next election?
She already announced she won’t be standing again
I’ve no idea how it works
The Labour Party has already gone through the process of selecting a candidate for that seat. If she’d defected before that had happened she could have put herself forward for reselection (and there’s a different process for that), but that ship has long sailed. The candidate is the candidate, and it’s not her.
Usually when MPs defect the receiving party tries to find them a safe seat to defend come the election. Otherwise what would the point be?
There are hardly any seats left which haven’t selected a Labour candidate at this point. All of the safe seats were done ages ago. The handful that are left vacant are all the absolute no-hopers for Labour where nobody really cares who the candidate is because they’re not going to win anyway.
Any defectors hoping to go that route have long since missed the boat. They’d have had to have jumped ship a year or two ago.
Point scoring against the government. I’m not knowledgeable on this so please could you give me an example of when a defecting MP has been given a safe seat?
Copying from a comment I made when the last one defected, it’s really Labour accepts a free seat in the commons. Being principled is nice but ultimately meaningless if you have no power to enact those principles.