The Independent Group for Change, a centrist party set up by ex-Conservative and Labour MPs, is being closed down.
The party has no members of parliament after last week’s general election.
In a letter to members on Thursday, the party’s leader, former Tory MP Anna Soubry, said they hoped “more Labour and Conservative MPs would share our courage and leave their respective political parties.”
“Whilst there is clearly a need for massive change in British politics, now that we no longer have voices within parliament, a longer-term realignment will have to take place in a different way,” wrote Soubry, who lost her seat in the election. “Honesty and realism are at the core of our values, and we therefore must recognise that the political uncertainty of recent months has now given way to a settled pattern in parliament for the next five years. So this is the right time for us to take stock.”
She added: “We have no regrets about standing up and speaking truth to power when the country needed it. It was always better to have fought and lost than never to have fought at all.”
The party was formed in February when seven Labour MPs quit over the leadership’s stance on Brexit and foreign policy issues as well as what they regarded as a failure to deal with anti-Semitism. They were joined by four Conservative MPs, including Soubry.
However, the party did badly in the European election, winning just 3 percent of the vote and no MEPs. Five of its MPs then quit to join the Liberal Democrats.
The party also struggled with branding. At first it was known as the Independent Group, or TIG. Ahead of the European election, the group sought to register as Change UK – the Independent Group, but faced a potential legal challenge from the petitions website Change.org.
It then became known as the Independent Group for Change.