The former Labour MP Jamie Reed has revealed he turned down an offer to defect to the Conservative party, after being promised a job as a Treasury minister.
Reed, who quit as the MP for Copeland in December to take a job at the Sellafield nuclear plant, said he was shocked by the offer made over dinner with two Tory politicians last April.
A vocal critic of the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, Reed said he could never have been tempted to cross the floor. In an article for the House magazine, he said: “Labour is the greatest and most effective vehicle for economic and social progress our country has ever seen.
“You don’t have to sympathise with Labour politics to accept this as a fact and so being asked to cross the floor to become a Tory MP was one of the strangest episodes of my parliamentary career.”
Reed, who declined to name the politicians who made the offer, described them as “Tory grandees – both good men, generous to a fault (they paid)”.
He went on: “I was flattered to learn of my outstanding qualities, delighted to hear of how much the country needed men like me, and how it would be nothing short of a national catastrophe should I not deploy my considerable talents on the Treasury benches.
“There are plenty of Tory MPs with whom I am on friendly terms. For fear of embarrassing them, they will remain nameless. Yet my response to this approach was primeval and immediate. ‘Well … gentlemen … I’m genuinely happy to learn that you hold me in such high regard … but can you imagine my embarrassment?’ We skipped dessert.”
Labour faces a tough byelection challenge from the Conservatives in Copeland on 23 February. It will coincide with a similarly challenging poll to defend the Labour seat in Stoke Central, where Ukip’s leader Paul Nuttall is contesting.
Labour’s Copeland majority was cut to 2,564 at the last general election and the Conservatives have high hopes of taking the seat given Corbyn’s historic opposition to nuclear power. Stoke and Copeland also registered a majority leave vote in the EU referendum.
On Wednesday night it was announced that the Conservatives had selected Trudy Harrison to fight the Copeland byelection, while Jack Brereton, a 25-year-old councillor, will contest the Stoke-on-Trent Central seat for the party.
Harrison, 40, said: “This important byelection is an opportunity for the people of Copeland to send a message that the referendum result must be respected. Copeland has had Labour MPs and Labour councils for years. They have ignored us and failed to deliver the jobs, infrastructure and services we need, and now they want to ignore how we voted in the referendum.
“I look forward to meeting as many local residents as possible in the coming weeks and setting out how voting Conservative this time will support our local nuclear industry and deliver the investment Copeland deserves.”
Labour also announced its candidate for Stoke, the local councillor Gareth Snell. Gillian Troughton, an ambulance driver and former doctor, was chosen last week to contest the Copeland seat for Labour.
