Labour and Conservative parliamentarians are anxious that the new breakaway group formed by Luciana Berger and Chuka Umunna has increased the chances of Theresa May calling an early election.
On the Labour side, MPs and peers were worried that the prime minister would be tempted to exploit a split in the opposition if more of their number defected to the new political group.
Stewart Wood, a Labour peer and political academic at the University of Oxford, said he believed the defections had “significantly raised the chances of a snap election being called”.
The former adviser to Ed Miliband said the prospect would be intensified if “20, 30 and even 50 Labour MPs think they can’t face the thought of standing on a manifesto for Jeremy Corbyn again”.
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