“I have to say, we have been working very hard over the past year to increase our membership.”
He points out that there appears to be far from complete agreement amongst the defectors about why they have left or what they stand for.
Marr tries to probe traditional areas of policy difference between the Tories and Labour, and is told they want to “coalesce around the evidence”.
The Environment Secretary says that the priority is securing a deal which can “avert either no Brexit, or no deal.”
The new group’s platform is not very inspiring. But its biggest problem is it they won’t be very different from the Conservatives’.
He’s a Brownite of Brownites with a Leave-voting seat – and one of Corbyn’s main critics. Which explains why he’s going and what he’s doing.
Plus: In news elsewhere, a luxury women’s health spa in Belgravia – with annual membership fees of £5,500 – this week blamed Brexit for its closure.
The SDP analogies are all wrung dry. But nobody has looked at what a more recent insurgency can teach the new outfit.
“As my friend Chuka Umunna said on Monday, you don’t join a political party to fight it – and don’t stay in it to skirmish at the margins.”
“The Party that was once the most trusted on the economy is no marching us towards the cliff edge of a no deal Brexit
“There was nothing else we had left in our pockets. This is in part designed to be a wake-up call.”
We regret the Party being less broad a tent than it did this morning. But the position of these MPs had become impossible – and intolerable.
They move from the Government side of the chamber to the Opposition one to sit with the Independent Group.
This is not about infiltration. Rather, it’s about defending democracy and the Leave vote, in a traditional, decent, moderate, thoughtful and patriotic way.