Brendan Clarke-Smith: The domino theory of defections

Brendan Clarke-Smith was Member of Parliament for Bassetlaw between 2019 and 2024 and served as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party

Over the Christmas holidays, I was watching my youngest carefully line up a set of dominoes on the floor. He had no intention of knocking them over. He admired the order, the symmetry, the fact that everything stood just so. After some persistent encouragement from his older brother, however, he flicked the first one. Moments later, he was genuinely astonished that several others followed.

Politics, alas, often works in much the same way.

This is comforting, but it is also wrong.

Anyone who has spent time studying politics – or, indeed, organisations of any kind – knows that outcomes rarely turn on a single variable. Systems fail not because of one bad decision, but because conditions are created in which certain outcomes become far more likely. Economists call these second-order effects. Political scientists might describe them as path dependency. The public simply recognise them as cause and effect.

Take Lee Anderson. Removing the whip may have satisfied a short-term demand for discipline, but it also sent a powerful signal that ideological deviation would be punished swiftly and publicly. The pressure came from those insulated from the consequences, and once that signal was sent, the incentives for others changed overnight. The first domino fell.

What followed was not a conspiracy, nor a sudden outbreak of collective madness. It was something far more prosaic: rational actors responding to a new set of conditions. MPs who had spent decades in the party, some of whom had joined long before Reform existed, suddenly had to ask themselves whether the Conservative Party still had room for them – culturally, intellectually, or electorally.

Of course, some defections are due to opportunism (Wakeford) or petulance (Elphicke, Poulter), but that is not the phenomenon we are currently dealing with. Many of those who have since left were not political nomads. Some had been members for 20 or 30 years. Others stayed through the worst of the polls, through the certainty of defeat, and through offers to defect before the election that they consciously rejected. To describe this as mere opportunism is not just inaccurate; it misunderstands what is actually happening.

There is also a wider context that cannot be ignored. The Conservative government promised to reduce migration but presided over record numbers. We spoke of sovereignty and taking back control, yet found ourselves repeatedly deferring to courts, lawyers, and international frameworks. After Brexit, the party briefly re-established a coalition with working-class voters in places like Mansfield and Bassetlaw – only to drift back, gradually but unmistakably, to a narrower base.

Then came the election timing. It was called earlier than necessary, which allowed Nigel Farage to enter the fray at precisely the moment when millions of voters felt politically homeless. To pretend these events are unrelated is to deny political reality.

None of this is an argument against leadership. Nor is it a criticism of Kemi Badenoch, who inherited an extraordinarily difficult position and has conducted herself with seriousness and integrity. But leadership is not simply about identifying culprits; it is about understanding systems. If we focus only on the character of those who left, we risk learning nothing from why they felt able – or compelled – to do so.

There is an alternative approach. It begins with grace rather than anger. Thank colleagues for their service. Acknowledge disagreements honestly. Make the case, calmly and confidently, for why your political home still offers the stronger path. Above all, recognise that loyalty is sustained by shared purpose, not enforced by sanction alone.

If we do not, we should not be surprised when more dominoes wobble.

The lesson of politics, as of childhood games on the living-room floor, is simple enough: flick the first piece without thinking through the consequences, and you may be surprised how many others fall – even if they never intended to move at all.