Mhairi Black: I respect the MPs who quit, but I don't agree with them

I should start by saying that my issue is not the people in the group, although some of them are certainly questionable from a policy perspective.

In fact, despite what many have said, I think it is a great show of bravery on the part of the ex-Labour and ex-Tory MPs to have left their parties.

Let me explain my thoughts a little further. It is clear to see that the problems with anti-Semitism are deep rooted in the current Labour Party. I am not Jewish, nor am I in Labour, but anyone looking in from the outside can see that the issue runs deep and isn’t being tackled by the leadership.

It would surely be easier for any Labour MP to move into the background, ignore the issue, and continue to collect their salary if they are in a safe Labour seat, but instead these MPs took a stand against it, risking their seats and their careers. I think that is brave. On the issue of Brexit, I can understand their frustration at the complete lack of leadership from Jeremy Corbyn on this mammoth subject.

Apathy laced with opportunism is how Corbyn’s reaction to the Brexit crisis will be remembered. We can disagree with them all we like, but they are taking a risk and fair play to them for that.

The same is true for the ex-Tories who joined the group this week. I don’t think anyone can pretend that Anna Soubry, Heidi Allen or Sarah Wollaston haven’t been clear that on the EU, they disagree with the larger Tory Party position, but I would be lying if I said I had ever believed that they would actually walk.

The Government are stuck in the clutches of the hard-line Brexiteers in the ERG due to their minority in the House of Commons, and I do respect the three MPs saying enough is enough and turning their back on the party.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that a lot of these MPs voted at one time or another in favour of holding a referendum on EU membership, or on invoking Article 50, however.

But Brexit isn’t the only thing The Independent Group stand for. They hope to be the voice of centrism in the UK – centrism that has failed people year after year after year in the UK.

The conversation around centrist policy in the UK tends to take two forms.

Either we firstly discuss the left-wing aspects that were good for everyone while ignoring the right-wing aspects that hurt people who can least afford to be hurt (example: the positive step of introducing the minimum wage coming from the same government that introduced Work Capability Assessments and hired Atos to carry them out). Or we speak of self-described “enlightened” centrist policy, which in reality has no real opinions on anything and moves with the wind and yet somehow always manages to drag everything to the right.

It is a pattern that occurs over and over again: the left has one idea, the right has another and then on the face of it, the right’s idea sounds good and gets voted for, while the left also, kind of, but not really, but also not not really, apologise while half-heartedly campaigning for what they believe.

The immigration debate is the finest example of this. On paper, of course, it makes sense to reduce immigration and train British people en masse to be the teachers, doctors, and nurses the country needs. Especially when the public is constantly battered with the narrative that immigrants are stealing all our jobs whilst somehow simultaneously also being reliant on unemployment benefit.

However, the second you scratch below the surface and join the real world, you find a growing population of children and not enough young people wanting to be teachers.

So you need migrants to fill teaching posts and to share ideas and experiences. Again, scratch beneath the surface and you find an aging population more reliant on the NHS with a wide range of growing medical issues. So, the need for medical staff is drastically shifting and it isn’t possible to train them all in the UK.

Those are only two of a huge number of reasons why we need immigration. But the argument for immigration, until recently, was never made by the left in the UK parties. Instead, Labour dished out “Vote Labour for Immigration Control” mugs.

I despair at how our politics is developing when a group of MPs that support austerity, privatisation, and tax cuts for the richest is considered centrist. Centrism does not bring the best of both worlds.

It shifts the platform of left-wing parties further and further towards the right, until suddenly all major parties look the same and the great inspiration at the ballot box is “who is the least worst out of this lot?”.

I sincerely respect the MPs who stood by their convictions and left their parties to form The Independent Group, but it is clear to me that I still disagree with most of those convictions. The very last thing the people of Scotland, or the UK as a whole, need is a great rebirth of centrism.