A FORMER Labour candidate for parliament has backed the seven MPs who have quit the party to form an independent group.

But other Labour figures in Dorset have voiced their disappointment at the actions of the seven, who include former frontbenchers Chuka Umunna, Chris Leslie and Luciana Berger.

Rachel Rogers – a former councillor who stood for parliament in West Dorset – said : ”The MPs who have chosen to leave the Labour Party are some of the architects and inheritors of the Labour government which brought so many positive changes to the people of the UK, from Sure Start Centres for children and families to free TV licences for the over-75s, from the reduction in NHS waiting times to the Good Friday Agreement.”

Ms Rogers, a pro-European who quit the party last year, said: “Instead of demanding loyalty with a gimmicky pledge, Labour’s current leadership should be asking itself why these MPs feel there is no place for them in the party. The leadership has failed to listen on Brexit or to act decisively on antisemitism and continues to pursue an alienating foreign policy agenda . Sadly, this move is likely to be too few and too late: if only every MP who voted ‘no confidence’ in Jeremy Corbyn back in 2016 had had the courage to join these seven MPs on that platform.”

But Corrie Drew, Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Bournemouth East, said: “I’m very disappointed about it because unity is really important to me and I love that we have such a big diverse party with lots of different experience and people with slightly different points of view. I think there’s strength in diversity and I’m sad that they’ve decided to go.”

She said the country needed change after years of austerity. “I think there’s a lot of good that we can do and I’m disappointed that this disruption will play into the hands of the Conservatives in a future general election,” she added.

Patrick Canavan, a former Labour Party constituency chair in Bournemouth, said: “It’s disappointing, with locale elections in May and a general election that could be at any time

“If people have frustrations or are not happy with the direction of the party, there are ways and means of dealing with it within Labour.”