Conservative MP and ex-minister Daniel Poulter defects to Labour

In an exclusive TV interview, the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that he could no longer look his NHS colleagues and patients in the eye and stay on as a Conservative.

Dr Poulter, who works part time as a doctor, said that Conservatives were no longer focused on public services.

Downing Street has just been told of his decision and is yet to respond.

Dr Poulter said he would sit as a Labour MP until the general election and then stand down.

He told the BBC: "I found it increasingly difficult to look my NHS colleagues in the eye, my patients in the eye, and my constituents in the eye with good conscience."

He suggested the party had stopped valuing public services, saying: "The difficulty for the Conservative Party is that the party I was elected into valued public services... it had a compassionate view about supporting the more disadvantaged in society.

"I think the Conservative Party today is in a very different place."

Dr Poulter, who was first elected in 2010, served as a health minister for several years under the coalition.

He said he had "no animus" towards Prime Minister Rishi Sunak but that the country needed a general election as soon as possible, adding that Labour and Sir Keir Starmer could be trusted to run the NHS and the country.

Sir Keir said he was pleased by Dr Poulter's decision to join Labour, adding: "It's time to end the Conservative chaos, turn the page and get Britain's future back."

Dr Poulter was asked if he thought his constituents who elected him as a Conservative would be angry with his decision, he said he could have carried on to the election and then stood down, or triggered a by-election but he said "I thought on balance, because there's going to be an election very soon, it's better to work for my constituents through to the end of this Parliament."

It is only the third Conservative defection since 2019.

Lee Anderson who sat briefly as an independent joined Reform last month. Christian Wakeford left the Conservatives for the Labour Party in 2022.

-bbc