Labour is considering introducing legislation which would allow voters to force MPs from office if they leave a political party, in the wake of eight of its own MPs resigning.

The proposal, as reported by Sky News, would allow constituents to petition to recall their Member of Parliament and trigger a by-election if they were to leave the party they had stood as a candidate for in the previous election. 

Luciana Berger, Chuka Umunna, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker, Angela Smith, Chris Leslie and Ann Coffey left the Labour party on Monday, forming The Independent Group, with Ms Berger, a Jewish MP, describing how she could not “remain in a party that I today have come to the sickening conclusion is institutionally antisemitic.” On Tuesday night, Joan Ryan, MP for Enfield North, followed suit, writing for the JC that “a Corbyn government would be, as British Jews have claimed, an existential threat to the community.”

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, three Tory MPs, Sarah Wollaston, Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen, resigned from the Conservatives and joined The Independent Group.

A number of Labour party figures have called on the MPs who have left the party to resign and trigger by-elections, arguing that they were elected as Labour MPs.

However, Chuka Umunna, one of the MPs in the new group, responded by retweeting a comment the current leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, made in 2010, where he told someone that in “our electoral system u vote 4 ur MP rather than a party/leader & I hope that on that basis u can cast ur vote feelin comfortable.”

“We don’t always agree on the big issues but on this the Labour leader is right,” Mr Umunna said.

“Not sure the official or unofficial spokespeople will be RTing this so thought I’d do so for them.”