Former Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston once called for MPs switching parties to face automatic by-elections.
Wollaston herself has just switched parties but refused to hold a by-election.
She was elected as a Conservative MP for Totnes but has now left the party to join ‘The Independent Group’ along with two other ex-Conservatives and eight ex-Labour MPs.
Legally, these MPs are allowed to keep their seats until the next general election without facing a vote of their constituents.
In 2011, Sarah Wollaston tried to change this by backing a Conservative backbench bill which aimed to make it illegal to change parties and keep a seat without an election.
Wollaston was criticised after former Tory and UKIP MP Douglas Carswell pointed this out on Twitter. When Carswell and Mark Reckless defected from the Tories to UKIP in 2014, they both held by-elections – which they won.
The eleven MPs in ‘The Independent Group’ have refused to hold by-elections, as have other former Labour MPs Ian Austin, John Woodcock, Fiona Onasanya.
A Right to Recall Act was introduced in 2015 which gives constituents the power to force a by-election if 10% of them sign a petition.
However, they are only allowed to do so if their MP has been suspended from Parliament, sent to prison or lied about their expenses – not if their MP has switched party.
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