WHEN a member of the British Parliament crosses the floor which divides government and opposition it’s an act drenched in symbolism and rich in political theatre. You have publicly disowned the party whose values you’ve upheld all your adult life and which has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds to ease your passage into this place. You do not undertake this journey lightly.

A mere handful of Tories since the end of the Second World War have felt so disenchanted and alienated inside their tribal camp that they’ve crossed over to Labour. This is a party, after all, which derives its entire spiritual and moral authority from opposing everything that Tories hold dear. The latest to do so was Christian Wakeford, the Tory MP for Bury South whose narrow win at the 2019 election was emblematic of the Red Wall of northern constituencies which fell to the Conservatives.

His defection was elaborately stage-managed to cause maximum damage to Boris Johnson: the coup de grace as the Prime Minister fell to the canvas. Mr Wakeford departed his spiritual and cultural homeland with these words: “You and the Conservative Party as a whole have shown themselves incapable of offering the leadership and government this country deserves.”

Loosely translated, what this really means is: “I’ve got a tiny minority to defend and I’ve got financial commitments to maintain. Labour aren’t much different from us anyway and I’ll have a better chance of winning with them in 2024.”

Mr Wakeford had other options. He could have become an independent, or maybe even joined the Ulster Unionists, as Enoch Powell did in 1974. Hell, why not just join the Liberal Democrats, the Partick Thistle of UK politics and a safe haven through the decades for those MPs of both parties whose consciences were bothering them?

Mr Wakeford will have had intense discussions with Sir Keir Starmer before walking the floor. Could Sir Keir promise to visit his constituency often during the next election? Could he maybe get that scary Angela Rayner to do so as well and ask her to be nice to him? She has an authentic northern accent and the proles love her. And might there be a wee junior ministerial emolument for him in a Starmer administration?

There was nothing here about profound ethical dilemmas arising in Mr Wakeford’s mind from Tories creating a hostile environment for refugees and asylum-seekers. Nothing about feeling ashamed to belong to a party which operated as a mafia enterprise during the coronavirus pandemic. This wasn’t a judgment on the travel of direction favoured by a far right Conservative administration. It wasn’t the extreme right-wing politics that was the problem for him, it was the fact that they were getting a bad name under Boris Johnson.

He hadn’t suddenly renounced those 400 or so occasions when he’d voted with this extreme right-wing government in less than two years. Mr Wakeford isn’t just a mild Tory toff, who had simply wandered into this party to do his bit to maintain the natural order of things. He’s an enthusiastic acolyte of modern Toryism, brooking no compromise in ensuring the writ of the few prevailed at the expense of the many.

Here he is voting against any measures to punish tax-avoiders. And look, here he is again dismissing climate change and voting against legislation that might mitigate it. Surely he might at least have abstained on proposals to help victims of domestic abuse. I mean, if you were possessed of the sort of conscience that would eventually lead you to the Labour Party then surely trying to help vulnerable women in abusive situations is a given? Eh, that would be a No.

And so Christian Wakeford’s defection to Labour says very little about the Conservative Party. Indeed, he more or less acknowledges this himself. But it does say a great deal about Labour under Sir Keir Starmer. Mr Wakeford even chose to add his own theatrical flourish during his 15 minutes of fame by wearing a lurid Union Jack face-mask. Was this his idea or Sir Keir’s? It certainly resonates with the Labour leader’s recent soft furnishing choices.

If someone like Mr Wakeford considers the UK Labour Party to be a safe haven for his political instincts then just about any Tory could transfer their party allegiances to it. What is there for a Tory sincerely to dislike about Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour? Why, just the other week he instructed his MPs to abstain in a vote on the Welfare Bill which commits the UK Government to limiting the amount it can spend on social security benefits and tax credits. This is at a time when working-class households will be brought to their knees with huge increases in their energy bills and fuel costs, even as they begin to encounter hikes in the cost of basic foodstuffs.

Was it this that finally convinced Mr Wakeford that Labour was a cushy number for right-wing Tories such as him? Perhaps it was Sir Keir’s Union Jack posturing and his clarion calls throughout the pandemic to be unquestioning partners of big business and to be patriotic supporters of the crown and the British armed forces. Perhaps it was his incessant tendency to portray himself as a champion of the Union and refusal to consider any suggestion of there being a second referendum on Scottish independence.

He’ll certainly have been enchanted by Sir Keir’s reluctance to increase corporation tax during the pandemic that might reasonably have obliged major firms who had flourished during lockdown to pay a little more. Taken with his refusal to ease the impending price apocalypse of disadvantaged families you can see why someone like Christian Wakeford feels that the UK Labour Party will be a home from home for him.

Labour under Jeremy Corbyn would never have welcomed such a persistent Tory as Mr Wakeford who, to be fair, would have considered it an anathema anyway. He needn’t worry about being harassed by Mr Corbyn’s remnant of supporters in Labour, though. Sir Keir has made it his business to create a soft landing for Mr Wakeford and his ilk by ensuring there are no actual Socialists left in the party to make them feel unwanted.

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