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Winston Churchill
Born
Formal switch, twice. Churchill crossed the floor from the Conservatives to the Liberals in 1904 over free trade, serving in Asquith's reforming cabinet, then drifted back to the Conservatives in the 1920s and became Baldwin's chancellor. He later joked that 'anyone can rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat'. Both switches were driven by policy, tariffs and anti-socialism, and both advanced his career, which is unusual.
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Joseph Chamberlain
Born
Formal switch. The radical Liberal mayor of Birmingham resigned from Gladstone's cabinet in 1886 over Irish Home Rule and led the Liberal Unionists, who allied with the Conservatives and eventually merged with them in 1912. He became Colonial Secretary in Salisbury's government and later split that coalition too, with his 1903 campaign for tariff reform. Few individuals have broken two major parties, and the Liberal Unionist split kept the Liberals out of office for most of the next twenty years.
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Ramsay MacDonald
Born
Expelled for crossing. Labour's first prime minister agreed in August 1931 to lead a National Government with the Conservatives and Liberals to impose spending cuts during the financial crisis. Labour expelled him, and at the October 1931 election the National Government won 554 seats while Labour was reduced to 52. He stayed prime minister until 1935 as an increasingly isolated figure in a Conservative-dominated coalition, and in Labour memory 'MacDonald' became a byword for betrayal.
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Enoch Powell
Born
A cross-party campaign and a formal switch. Powell stood down as a Conservative before the February 1974 election and urged voters to back Labour because it offered a referendum on Common Market membership; some analysts think he swung enough votes to change the result. In 1975 he campaigned for a No vote alongside Tony Benn and Michael Foot. He then sat as an Ulster Unionist MP for South Down until 1987. His 1968 'Rivers of Blood' speech remains the dominant part of his legacy.
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Dick Taverne
Born
Formal switch, tested by voters. When his Lincoln constituency party deselected him for backing Common Market entry, Taverne resigned his seat and fought a by-election in 1973 as 'Democratic Labour', winning with a majority of over 13,000. He held on narrowly in February 1974 and lost that October. He is the rare defector who sought his voters' verdict immediately, and his campaign was a forerunner of the SDP split eight years later. He later sat in the Lords as a Liberal Democrat.
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Reg Prentice
Born
Formal switch from cabinet. Prentice served in Harold Wilson's cabinet, was deselected by left-wing activists in his Newham North East constituency, and crossed the floor to the Conservatives in 1977, the most senior Labour figure to do so. He won Daventry for the Conservatives in 1979 and served as a minister under Thatcher. His case became a touchstone in the Labour arguments over mandatory reselection that helped drive the SDP split.
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Roy Jenkins
Born
New party. Returning from the presidency of the European Commission, Jenkins called in a 1979 lecture for 'breaking the mould' of British politics, and in 1981 he, Shirley Williams, David Owen and Bill Rodgers issued the Limehouse Declaration and founded the Social Democratic Party. He won the Glasgow Hillhead by-election in 1982 and led the SDP into the 1983 election in alliance with the Liberals, winning a quarter of the vote but only 23 seats. The merger with the Liberals in 1988 created today's Liberal Democrats.
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Shirley Williams
Born
New party, then merger. A former Labour education secretary, Williams co-founded the SDP and in November 1981 won the Crosby by-election, overturning a Conservative majority of nearly 20,000 to become the party's first elected MP. She lost the seat in 1983, backed the merger with the Liberals and later led the Liberal Democrats in the Lords. Her stated reason for leaving Labour was its turn towards leaving Europe and unilateral disarmament.
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David Owen
Born
New party, and a refusal to merge. A former Labour Foreign Secretary, Owen co-founded the SDP and led it from 1983, then refused to join the 1988 merger with the Liberals and kept a rump 'continuing SDP' going until it was outpolled by the Monster Raving Loony Party at the 1990 Bootle by-election and wound up. He later sat as a crossbencher in the Lords and backed Brexit. His career shows the costs of crossing a line twice.
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Alan Howarth, Baron Howarth of Newport
Born
Formal switch. A former Conservative minister and party vice-chairman, Howarth crossed the floor to Labour in October 1995, the first Conservative MP to defect directly to Labour, citing the Major government's social policies. He left his Stratford-on-Avon seat, was elected Labour MP for Newport East in 1997 and served as a minister under Blair. His move was an early sign of New Labour's pull on the moderate Conservative wing.
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Shaun Woodward
Born
Formal switch. Woodward had been the Conservatives' director of communications for the 1992 election before becoming MP for Witney. He was sacked from the front bench in 1999 for supporting repeal of Section 28 and crossed to Labour that December. Labour found him the safe seat of St Helens South in 2001, and he served as Northern Ireland Secretary under Gordon Brown. His successor in Witney was David Cameron.
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Quentin Davies
Born
Formal switch on the day a new prime minister arrived. Davies, the Conservative MP for Grantham and Stamford, defected to Labour in June 2007 on the eve of Gordon Brown taking office, writing to David Cameron that the party under him lacked conviction and direction. He became a defence minister under Brown, focusing on equipment procurement, and stood down from the Commons in 2010 before entering the Lords. It was a defection timed for maximum political effect.
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Douglas Carswell
Born
Formal switch with a by-election. Carswell left the Conservatives for UKIP in August 2014 and, unusually, resigned his Clacton seat to seek a new mandate, winning the by-election with 60 per cent of the vote and becoming UKIP's first elected MP. He held the seat in 2015, then left UKIP in 2017 and stood down. His decision to resign and recontest set a standard that later defectors have mostly declined to follow.
More about Douglas Carswell14
Jo Cox
Born
Cross-party campaigner, no switch. In her single year in Parliament, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen co-founded the all-party group on Friends of Syria with the Conservative Andrew Mitchell and began work on loneliness with the Conservative Seema Kennedy. After her murder in June 2016, the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness, led by Kennedy and Rachel Reeves, reported in 2017, and the government appointed the world's first minister for loneliness in 2018. Her maiden speech line that 'we have far more in common' became a cross-party motto.
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Chuka Umunna
Born
New party, then another. In February 2019 Umunna was among seven Labour MPs who left over Brexit and antisemitism to form The Independent Group, soon joined by three Conservatives. The group became Change UK, polled 3 per cent at the European elections, and split. Umunna joined the Liberal Democrats in June 2019 and lost his seat in December. The episode is now a standard example of how hard it is to launch a new party from the Commons under first past the post.
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Anna Soubry
Born
New party, from the other side. Soubry, a former Conservative minister, left with Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen days after the Labour defectors to join The Independent Group in February 2019, citing the party's direction on Brexit. She became Change UK's leader after the European elections and lost her Broxtowe seat in December 2019, finishing third. Her case is a reminder that the 2019 realignment cost Remain-supporting Conservatives as heavily as Labour rebels.
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Christian Wakeford
Born
Formal switch. Elected in 2019 as one of the 'red wall' Conservatives, Wakeford crossed the floor to Labour in January 2022 at the height of the Partygate revelations, telling Boris Johnson in a letter that he had shown himself 'incapable of offering the leadership and government this country deserves'. He held Bury South for Labour at the 2024 election, which made his switch one of the few that voters endorsed at the next general election.
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Natalie Elphicke
Born
A formal switch that confused both sides. The Conservative MP for Dover, previously known for hard-line views on Channel crossings, defected to Labour in May 2024 citing the Sunak government's failure on small boats and housing. Many Labour MPs were uneasy, given her earlier remarks defending her former husband, a former MP convicted of sexual assault. She did not stand at the July 2024 election, so the switch had little parliamentary consequence beyond a headline.
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Danny Kruger
Born
Formal switch to a newer party. In September 2025 Kruger, the MP for East Wiltshire and a former Conservative front-bencher, became the first sitting Conservative MP to defect to Reform UK, saying the Conservatives had lost their purpose and that Reform was the real opposition. He took on a role preparing Reform for government. His move opened the way for a wave of further Conservative defections to Reform in the following months.
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Suella Braverman
Born
Formal switch by a former Home Secretary. Braverman, twice Home Secretary under Truss and Sunak, joined Reform UK in January 2026, accusing the Conservatives of betrayal on immigration and Brexit. She followed other senior figures that month, including Robert Jenrick and Nadhim Zahawi, and the run of defections led MPs to debate whether a defector should face an automatic by-election. Like most of that wave, she has not sought a fresh mandate from her constituents.
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