Sharp increase in UK MPs switching party allegiances

Last week, there was drama in the House of Commons when Phillip Lee resigned as a Tory MP, defecting to the Liberal Democrats. That cost Prime Minister Boris Johnson his working majority and he subsequently lost several key votes, throwing his Brexit strategy into chaos. Indeed, the complexity and division brought about by Brexit has made such shifts in party allegiance increasingly common in British politics. According to number crunching from Beth Desmond on Twitter, there have been 84 such defections since 2017 compared to 25 between 2010 and 2017.