Welcome to F.T. Politics, a weekly discussion on what's happening in Westminster from the Financial Times.

I'm Sebastian Payne. This week we'll be discussing what

has been a pretty big week in British politics. We've seen the emergence of

the Independence Group of MPs, with defections from Labour and the Conservative Parties, we'll be discussing through

what happens, what it all means, and what it might head next, particularly with regards to Brexit.

I'm delighted to be joined by James Blitz, our Whitehall editor and political correspondent Laura Hughes.

Thank you all for joining.

And if you like this episode of FT Politics, then why not subscribe through all the usual channels

to receive it every Saturday morning or you can even

leave us a nice review on iTunes. So after weeks, months, even years of speculation, the

ice finally broke this week. On Monday morning the gang of seven labor MPs walked

into a rather small room on London South Bank to announce they were quitting the

party and forming the independent group. They were then soon followed by an eighth

colleague Joan Ryan. And then on Wednesday three Europhile Conservatives joined them to make the

independent group a truly cross-party centrist endeavor. So is this the beginning of a major

political realignment in Britain or just a splinter that was always going to happen?

Laura Hughes, let's begin with Monday and that press conference so I can't really think when the

speculation began about labor MPs breaking away I guess not long after Jeremy

Corbyn won his second leadership contest but no one really knew exactly when it was going to

happen and some people thought it might happen on Valentine's Day it might

happen last Friday it might happen over the weekend and on Monday it did finally

happen we've been talking about this for almost years I would say.

...