Tribal politics and the demise of ChangeUK

A couple of useful stories in the Graun today. First, a shortish item on the split of ChangeUK:

Change UK, which was initially called the Independent Group, caused a stir in Westminster [and some fluttering in the Graun] when it was launched four months ago after the defection of seven Labour MPs. It had hoped to become the catalyst for a major political realignment, attracting a string of other recruits and becoming the rallying point for remainers...High-profile candidates including the former Conservative minister Stephen Dorrell, and the journalists Rachel Johnson and Gavin Esler, joined the party’s list of prospective MEPs.

But now:

Six of Change UK’s 11 MPs, including its spokesman, Chuka Umunna, and interim leader Heidi Allen, have abandoned the fledgling party after its dire performance at the European elections....Several of the MPs who have quit the party are believed to be considering defecting to the resurgent Liberal Democrats, although they issued a statement saying that they would initially sit as a group of independents...Allen and Umunna have both been advocating closer cooperation with Vince Cable’s party. Some of their erstwhile colleagues suspect they may have been offered plum seats, or the backing of Lib Dem activists in their existing constituency, if they defect.

Meanwhile, at the grass roots, away from calculating careerism and opportunism, the dilemma for millenial identity politics is laid bare, no doubt in a deliberately humorous way,  by a Gruan contributor  on an anti-Trump march:

I am keen to make friends at an anti-Trump protest in London. But where is my tribe?

While shuffling along chanting slogans, a wave of emotion hits me. It feels like hope

 I’m at the protest alone but am keen to make friends....While shuffling along chanting “Say it loud, say it clear, Donald Trump’s not welcome here”, a wave of emotion hits me. It feels like [sic]  hope. There’s something about a good protest – all these people from different parts of life and disparate interest groups coming together on a rainy Tuesday – that makes me feel as if we’re connected to a common cause. [Middle-class version of football fandom, complete with an exciting but safe small contretemps with the police]: But people are passionate – so much so that the police move in and say “Enough, enough, enough!”

One group she joins seems friendly but:

 My new friends are a group on a walking tour that unwittingly got caught in one of the city’s biggest protests [really?]...The people in the group are grinning at each other, amused. This is definitely more fun than watching the changing of the guard. “You’ve really experienced something now,” says the tour leader kind of desperately as a group with an anarchist flag marches past chanting “Death to America”....Where are my people??? ...There are a heap of placards on the side of the road, halfway up Whitehall. They look like pyre wood [?]. I grab one with an anti-racist slogan... I’m down with that. I may not have found my tribe, but I’ve found my placard.