Say what? Liberal Democrat councillor Jennifer Churchill defects to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour saying Tim Farron “worse than Clegg”
While Tim Farron, the new Liberal Democrat leader, has been openly claiming that Labour MPs are calling him up and wanting to defect from Jeremy Corbyn's left-leaning leadership, a member of the Lib Dems has packed her bags and left him.
Teddington councillor Jennifer Churchill announced her departure from the party for Labour today, saying Farron "doesn't seem to stand for anything – making him in this sense even worse than Nick Clegg", she said.
Speaking to the Richmond and Twickenham Times, Churchill also said the party was "parroting Tory economic propaganda".
Churchill, whose husband remains a Lib Dem councillor, said Corbyn's election had made "it became a real possibility" that she would leave the more centrist party.
Read more: 475 days later? Bookies don't think Corbyn has staying power
"The Labour party's policies are more in line with my own views," she added.
The defection will be embarrassing to Farron, coming just days after he appeared on The Andrew Marr Show where he predicted precisely the opposite.
“My sense is there are Liberals in other parties who are not yet Liberal Democrats," Farron said during the interview. “You can ask and it’s a number but I think it would be unfair to them to go any further into that.”