Anna Soubry: Former Conservative business minister says she will vote Labour

An ex-Conservative business minister has said she will vote Labour.

Anna Soubry, who served in government under David Cameron until 2016, made the announcement in response to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s plea for disaffected Conservatives to vote Labour.

In his conference speech, Sir Keir called on Tory voters who were looking on in “horror” at what he called the party’s descent into “the murky waters of populism and conspiracy” to vote Labour at the next general election.

In response, Ms Soubry said on X, formerly Twitter: “I will be voting Labour. With Keir Starmer as leader they have the values and competence to deliver the change our country desperately needs.”

Ms Soubry, formerly MP for Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire, left the Conservatives in 2019, citing disaffection with the party’s policy on Brexit.

She then joined and led the short-lived centrist party Change UK, which was dissolved after all of its MPs lost their seats at the 2019 General Election.

The barrister served as minister for small business, industry and enterprise from May 2015 until July 2016. She was previously minister of state at the Ministry of Defence for a year.

Among the pledges in Sir Keir’s conference speech, which was temporarily disrupted by a protester throwing glitter over the Labour leader, was a commitment to build 1.5 million new homes.

The Labour leader promised to “bulldoze” his way to a new Britain and said he would stand up to his own party in order to achieve his goal.

Speaking after his conference speech, he said “We are going to have to be tough with anybody who stands in the way of that and that will include any Labour MPs who say: ‘Well, I’m signed up to the project but just not here.’”

He told Times Radio he was confident he could hit his house-building target, which would include plans for the next generation of new towns.

He added: “In five years’ time, if we’re lucky enough to get elected next time to serve, the electorate will have their chance to judge whether we are delivering on what we’ve said.

“I’m confident we will. But of course the electorate will have to judge.

“But what I don’t want to do and didn’t want to do yesterday was to pretend that all of this can be done in one five-year term – the damage that’s been done to our country is huge. And that’s why I talked in terms of a 10-year project of national renewal."