Dan Poulter MP Quits The Tories And Joins Labour
Dan Poulter MP has defected from the Tories to Labour (Alamy)
3 min read
Dan Poulter MP has quit the Conservatives and joined the Labour Party, accusing the Tories of becoming "a nationalist party of the right".
Poulter, a former health minister who has been the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich since 2010, on Saturday told The Observer he had decided to join Keir Starmer's party because the Tories had become less compassionate and stopped prioritising the NHS.
Poulter has become the latest Conservative figure to switch to Labour after Christian Wakeford, the MP for Bury South, crossed the floor in 2022.
Richard Walker, the boss of supermarket Iceland, announced earlier this year he had stopped donating to the Conservatives to throw his weight behind Labour. In February, PoliticsHome revealed that former Tory minister Nick Boles had started advising shadow ministers on preparing for government.
Poulter's defection represents a severe blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's bid to build momentum ahead of next week's highly-anticipated local and mayoral elections.
He told the newspaper that the health service was the key reason for his defection, accusing his former party of abandoning its commitment to the NHS when David Cameron, now the foreign secretary, ceased to be Tory prime minister eight years ago.
"I have to be able to look my NHS colleagues in the eye, my patients in the eye and my constituents in the eye. And I know that the Conservative government has been failing on the thing I care about most, which is the NHS and its patients," he said.
“The Conservative party’s values have changed over the past eight years...
"The values of the Conservative party under David Cameron were different values and the priorities were very different. David Cameron undoubtedly had a very strong commitment to the NHS.
“Since he ceased to be prime minister eight years ago, the health service has ceased to be an area of priority for the Conservative party, and that is now showing in the strain on the frontline and the deterioration of care for patients.”
Poulter went on to accuse his former party of drifting away from the centre ground and from issues that voters care about, and further towards the right wing.
"It feels to me that the Tory party has gone from being a pragmatic, centrist, centre-right party which focused on and understood the importance of public service and the state to deliver certain things... and had a compassionate outlook on key issues. It has gone from that and feels like it has become a nationalist party of the right, much more of what we see in Europe," he said.
Poulter has resigned the Tory whip to join Labour, but does not plan to contest the next general election. He said he hopes to advise the opposition party on its mental health policy in the run-up to the next election, which Sunak must call this year.
Starmer said: "It’s fantastic to welcome Dr Dan Poulter MP to today’s changed Labour Party.
"My party is back in the service of working people. Our mission is to grow the economy and rebuild our public services. I’m delighted that Dan will be helping us get the NHS back on its feet."
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