Editing Crossing the floor (section)

== Changing parties ==
In the United Kingdom and Canada, crossing the floor means leaving one's party entirely and joining another caucus. For example, leaving an opposition party to support the government (or vice versa), leaving or being expelled from the party one ran with at election and sitting as a clear<ref group=note>Independents are MPs who are not members of any party recognized in the House, which may happen for a range of reasons. The House may have a minimum threshold caucus size for party recognition (distinct from the Electoral oversight body), so if only one or two politicians are elected from a minor party their party is not accorded status and they are treated as independents. Another reason could relate to e.g. the death of a party's candidate after ballots were printed but before polling began, so alternate candidate runs independently but pledging to "take the whip" of party X. These examples are not "clearly" independent MPs, unlike someone who resigns from party Y declaring they can no longer in principle remain with it, or someone who ran and was elected on a platform against all the existing parties.</ref> independent, or even leaving one opposition party to join another. In both countries, the term carries only this meaning, not simply voting against the party line on a bill.

In April 2006, then-premier of Manitoba [[Gary Doer]] of the [[New Democratic Party of Manitoba]] proposed banning crossing the floor in the Manitoba legislature in response to "the concern some voters have expressed over the high-profile defections of three federal MPs from their parties in just over two years".<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.canada.com/cityguides/reddeer/story.html?id=3d05619e-313e-4cce-a7a2-f5beed56b228&k=3864 |title=Proposed reforms would ban floor-crossing in Man. |last=Macafee |first=Michelle |date=April 11, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070323022203/http://www.canada.com/cityguides/reddeer/story.html?id=3d05619e-313e-4cce-a7a2-f5beed56b228&k=3864 |archive-date=March 23, 2007 |publisher=Canadian Press}}</ref> The resulting legislation, which amended the provincial ''Legislative Assembly Act'', mandated that members of the legislature who quit (or are expelled from) their political party had to serve out the remainder of their term as independents.<ref>{{Cite canlaw |short title=The Elections Reform Act|abbr=SM |year=2006 |chapter=15 |link=https://web2.gov.mb.ca/laws/statutes/2006/c01506ee.php}}.</ref>  However, in 2018, the [[Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba|Progressive Conservative]] government of [[Brian Pallister]] repealed the bill.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/floor-crossing-ban-law-change-1.4297517 |title=Manitoba government will change law banning floor-crossing, avoid lawsuit |first=Steve |last=Lambert |work=[[CBC News]] |agency=The Canadian Press |orig-date=September 19, 2017 |date=September 20, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite canlaw |short title=The Legislative Assembly Amendment Act (Member Changing Parties) |abbr=SM |year=2018 |chapter=3 |link=https://web2.gov.mb.ca/laws/statutes/2018/c00318e.php}}.</ref>

An extraordinary example occurred in Alberta, Canada, in December 2014 by [[Danielle Smith]], the Leader of the Official Opposition. She and eight of her MLAs, all of the [[Wildrose Party]], crossed the floor together to join the governing [[Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta]].<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://globalnews.ca/news/1737886/danielle-smiths-move-to-pcs-unprecedented/ |title=Danielle Smith's move to PCs 'unprecedented' |date=December 20, 2014 |first=Alyssa |last=Julie |work=Global News}}</ref> In 2019, eleven [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|British MPs]] defected from the Conservative and [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] parties to form the [[Change UK]] party. In September 2019, the governing Conservative party lost its working majority when [[Phillip Lee (politician)|Phillip Lee MP]] defected to the [[Liberal Democrats (UK)|Liberal Democrats]] during the first speech of new prime minister [[Boris Johnson]].<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49570682 |title=Tory MP defects ahead of crucial Brexit vote |work=[[BBC News]] |date=3 September 2019 |access-date=4 September 2019 |language=en-GB}}</ref> On 19 January 2022, [[Christian Wakeford]], Conservative [[Member of Parliament (UK)|MP]] for [[Bury South (UK Parliament constituency)|Bury South]], crossed the floor to the Labour benches.<ref>{{Cite news |date=19 January 2022 |title=Tory MP Christian Wakeford defects to Labour |language=en-GB |work=[[BBC News]] |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-60054968 |access-date=19 January 2022}}</ref>