Tory MP Natasha Elphicke Defects to Labour

Tory MP Natalie Elphicke has defected to Labour, crossing the floor just moments before Prime Minister Rishi Sunak began taking questions in Parliament.

Ms. Elphicke became the second MP to leave the Conservatives for the opposition in just 11 days, following Dr. Dan Poulter who quit the party ahead of the local elections, which saw a large swing to Labour.

She won her seat in 2019 after her then husband, Charlie Elphicke, stepped down as MP for the Dover constituency after being charged with sexual assault, for which he was later jailed.

Addressing a press conference in Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s parliamentary office, Ms. Elphicke—regarded as being on the right-wing of the Tory party—criticised the “broken promises of Rishi Sunak’s tired and chaotic government.”

She said: “I have carefully considered this decision. The change has been dramatic and cannot be ignored.”

“For me, key deciding factors have been housing and the safety and security of our borders.”

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She added: “From small boats to biosecurity, Rishi Sunak’s government is failing to keep our borders safe and secure. Lives are being lost in the English Channel while small boat arrivals are once again at record levels.”

“It’s clear they have failed to keep our borders secure and cannot be trusted.”

Ms. Elphicke has previously said she is standing down at the general election and denied to reporters that she had been offered a peerage by Labour. She won her seat with a majority of 12,278, with the seat not won by Labour since 1997.

Her former husband, a solicitor, was jailed for two years after being found guilty in 2020 of sexually assaulting two women.

He had been suspended by the Conservatives during the police investigation and did not contest the seat at the 2019 general election.

Ms. Elphicke, who also has a background in law, stood by her husband during his trial but began divorce proceedings after he was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison.

She announced the end of their marriage in a Twitter post after he was found guilty, and later became the Tory candidate for Dover after she was unopposed within the constituency party.

She sold the story of her marriage breakup to The Sun newspaper for £25,000.

In July 2021, Ms. Elphicke received a one-day suspension from Parliament after she was one of five MPs found to have breached the code of conduct by the Commons Select Committee on Standards for attempting to influence senior judges in her husband’s sentencing appeal after his conviction.

Natalie Elphicke accompanying her then-husband Charlie Elphicke to Southwark Crown Court where he was on trial for sexual assault, in London on July 20, 2020. (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

The minister for railways told BBC News, “I’m absolutely staggered—I’ve seen some sights in this place, but actually the lack of scruples on this one is a new bar that Natalie has created.”

He added, “She is just being opportunist, I’m afraid to say, and I’m just disappointed for politics that she’s done what she’s done today.”

Ms. Elphicke told reporters on Wednesday afternoon: “When I was elected in 2019, the Conservative Party occupied the centre ground of British politics. The party was about building the future and making the most of the opportunities that lay ahead for our country.”

“Since then, many things have changed. The elected prime minister was ousted in a coup led by the unelected Rishi Sunak. Under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives have become a byword for incompetence and division.

“The centre ground has been abandoned and key pledges of the 2019 manifesto have been ditched.

“Meanwhile the Labour Party has changed out of all recognition. Since 2019, it has moved on from Jeremy Corbyn and now, under Keir Starmer, occupies the centre ground of British politics.

“It has accepted Brexit and its economic policies and defence policies are responsible and can be trusted.”

A year ago, Ms. Elphicke used a column in the Daily Express to claim “not only have Labour got no plan of their own to tackle illegal immigration, they simply do not want to,” and said Sir Keir “has pledged to rip up our world-leading partnership to remove illegal migrants to Rwanda.”

Asked about her previous criticism of Labour over immigration policy, she said Mr. Sunak “was the man who said he would stop the boats,” but so far this year there had been “record numbers of small boats arrivals.”

“So, he’s not stopping the boats and he’s letting the country down.”

Tory former minister Stephen Hammond told Sky News, “One of the reasons why I’m so surprised is that she’s always been on the right of the Conservative Party.”

“If there’s been someone who has done as much as anyone to drag my party away from the centre ground of British politics in the last five years, it’s been Natalie.”

Sir Keir avoided answering a reporter’s question on whether there could be more Tory defections ahead of the election, with opinion polls and the local council results all indicating a large Labour majority is likely.

He said, “I think there are very many Tory voters who genuinely feel that the party that they may have voted for—many, many times in some cases—is no longer the Tory party that they see.”

Ms. Elphicke’s departure from the Conservatives follows hot on the heels of Dr. Poulter, a former health minister and working medic, who said the NHS “crisis” had convinced him to quit the party.

He told the BBC he had defected to Labour because of its “track record of delivering for patients, transforming services, getting on top of waiting lists, investing in community health care.”

Dr. Poulter will join the opposition benches until the general election but will not be standing to defend his Central Suffolk and North Ipswich seat.

He will advise the Labour Party on its mental health policies while focusing more on his NHS work, which he said he intends to return to full-time following the dissolution of Parliament for the general election.

During Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir welcomed Ms. Elphicke to his party, accusing Mr. Sunak of “staggering on” in not calling a general election after losing two MPs and close to 500 local councillors at the ballot box in the past fortnight.

Downing Street insisted Mr. Sunak would not change course over his immigration policies in the wake of the Dover MP’s defection.

The prime minister’s press secretary dismissed questions on whether Mr. Sunak is concerned about the second defection in recent weeks, saying he is focused on “the priorities of the British people.”

PA Media contributed to this report.