The lessons from the rise and fall of Change UK

Leaving your party is brave because it is a costly and painful thing to do. You risk the loss of relationships, your sense of belonging and identity, your status and your income. The eleven MPs who formed the Independent Group took those risks knowingly. They saw Conservative and Labour parties transformed by blinkered nationalism and dogmatic socialism, each of them over-run by zealots whose commitment to their ideology is exceeded only by their unkindness towards those who do not share the faith.

I remember seeing the relief on the faces of those eleven MPs back in February when they made the break. All of them seemed happier without the burden of being in a party that had ceased to feel like home. They were free to be themselves, to speak their minds, to vote with their consciences.

This week, the party that the Independent Group became – Change UK – has split.