LONDON — A Conservative MP defected to the opposition Labour Party just weeks out from the U.K.’s general election.
Mark Logan — who represented Bolton North East for the Conservatives until parliament was dissolved Thursday — told the BBC that he is applying to become a member of the Labour Party, in the latest blow for U.K. PM Rishi Sunak.
“For my constituents and for the country, it’s right that we get some stability back into the UK, we get optimism, we get new and fresh ideas,” Logan told the BBC. “The time has come to bring back optimism into British public life.”
Logan is the latest Conservative to cross the floor to the Labour Party, which has a commanding lead over Sunak’s Tories in opinion polls and is widely expected to win the election on July 4.
The Tory MP Natalie Elphicke dramatically defected to Labour earlier May, while the former health minister Dan Poulter switched parties in April.
Some on the Labour left have been deeply uneasy about the Conservative defections while key left-wingers are being barred from standing for Labour again — a subject that dominated Labour’s campaign Thursday.
After winning his bellwether constituency for the Tories in 2019, Logan mostly served on the backbenches — though did hold a role as a government aide until the summer of 2022, when he quit amid mass resignations from Boris Johnson’s government.
In recent months, he has grown critical of the U.K.’s support for Israel in its post-October 7 attack assault on Gaza. In a Commons debate in February, he broke ranks with his party to claim that Israel had “gone too far.”
Logan, who won’t be contesting the Bolton seat for Labour as it has already picked a candidate there, didn’t rule out running for Labour in the future. The opposition party must finalize its election candidates by June 4.
He told the BBC he been considering backing Labour “for quite a long period.”
“It’s more about not the push factor of Conservatives, but the pull factor of [Labour leader] Keir Starmer, the new cabinet that would come in, the fresh faces, the fresh ideas,” he said — and even referenced “Things Can Only Get Better,” the anthem of Tony Blair’s New Labour.
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