Christian Wakeford, the MP for Bury South, condemned Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s leadership on Wednesday as he announced he was defecting from the Conservative Party to the opposition Labour Party.
“I have concluded that the policies of the Conservative government that you lead are doing nothing to help the people of my constituency and indeed are only making the struggles they face on a daily basis worse,” Wakeford said in his letter to the prime minister.
In a direct attack on Johnson, who is fighting for survival amid the ongoing ‘Partygate’ row, Wakeford accused him of being “incapable of offering the leadership and government this country deserves.”
I can no longer support a government that has shown itself consistently out of touch with the hard-working people of Bury South and the country as a whole
Wakeford, who won his seat in 2019, was one of the so-called ‘Red Wall’ Tories who helped Johnson secure a sizeable majority at the last election.
Welcoming Wakeford to Labour, the party’s leader Sir Keir Starmer stated that he was “delighted” at the defection, as he seeks to “build a new Britain which guarantees security, prosperity and respect for all.”
The defection came moments before Johnson appeared in the House of Commons for the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session.
Johnson has been struggling to retain the support of his own MPs amid a controversy that has become known as ‘Partygate’. In recent weeks, multiple allegations of parties in Downing Street while lockdown restrictions were in place have been reported by British media outlets.
Last Wednesday, Johnson offered an apology in Parliament, stating that he will “take responsibility” for attending a garden party at Downing Street during the May 2020 lockdown.