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Defecting MP confirms Labour are the new Tories

9 February 2005

Robert Jackson, the Conservative MP who joined the ranks of New Labour last month has recently been out campaigning in Rose Hill, according to the Oxford Mail (‘Tory defector presses the flesh for Labour’, 7 February).

Despite the local Labour Party’s recent crowing over the defection, the few remaining Labour supporters in this working class ward would no doubt have been dismayed to find one of the old enemies canvassing on their doorsteps.

The enthusiasm with which

defecting Tory MP Robert Jackson

(centre) was welcomed by Oxford

East MP Andrew Smith (left)and

other Labour members shows how

close the two parties really are.

Robert Jackson told the Oxford

Mail: ‘I have been consistent

throughout my career—the Labour

Party has evolved and changed

around me’.

Oxford East Labour MP Andrew Smith has eagerly welcomed Robert Jackson to the fold, making the effort to personally greet him at the House of Commons.

The fact that the defecting MP was happy to stick with the Conservatives while they led the neo-liberal attacks on the working class during the 80s and 90s is presumably not lost on Mr Smith.

However, Labour’s rightward drift is so complete that Robert Jackson, like many other Tory MPs, can now feel perfectly at home with the party of Tony Blair.

As Jackson put it himself, ‘I have been consistent throughout my career—the Labour Party has evolved and changed around me’. (Oxford Mail, 7 February)