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Labour’s chair has defended the main opposition party’s decision to admit Conservative Natalie Elphicke, after the MP for Dover defected on Wednesday with a salvo against Rishi Sunak’s “tired and chaotic government”.
Elphicke’s shock decision to cross the floor of the House of Commons moments before prime minister’s questions has triggered anger and bemusement in Sir Keir Starmer’s party.
Labour MPs have raised concerns about her rightwing politics, past criticism of the party and defence of her ex-husband Charlie Elphicke following his conviction for sexual assault.
But Labour chair Anneliese Dodds on Thursday said Elphicke, who will stand down at the next general election, was a good fit for Labour and that “people can change their minds”.
She told the BBC that the former Tory MP was “taking the same decision as so many other former Conservative supporters up and down the country”.
Elphicke had “realised that in order to put her constituents and country first, she cannot continue backing a party that is . . . divided and is incompetent, in her words, and one that cannot deliver on issues like migration, security and housing”, Dodds said.
Asked about Elphicke’s defence of her disgraced former husband and her one-day suspension from the Commons following an “improper” attempt to influence a judge hearing his trial, Dodds said Labour’s newest MP had already faced “accountability” and a “parliamentary process”.
Dodds told Times Radio: “I believe that she has addressed this in parliament and in public, and rightly so, because this is a very serious subject.”
Elphicke’s past defence of her ex-husband following his conviction, including her claim that he had been “attractive” to women and an “easy target for dirty politics and false allegations”, has alarmed female Labour MPs.
Dodds was on Thursday quizzed about a series of other previous interventions by Elphicke. Asked about the defecting MP’s criticism of footballer Marcus Rashford over his campaigning against child poverty, Dodds said she had “rightly apologised for those unacceptable comments”.
Elphicke’s surprise defection follows that of fellow Tory Dan Poulter, who decided to join Labour last month. The MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, who is a doctor, said he was quitting because he could not look NHS colleagues and patients “in the eye with good conscience” and called for an early general election.
Despite Starmer’s judgment coming under scrutiny over the move, a YouGov poll on Thursday gave Labour the largest lead over the Tories since Liz Truss was in Downing Street.
Labour was on 48 per cent and the Conservatives on 18 per cent, according to the survey, while Reform UK was on 13 per cent.
It came as shortlived former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi announced he would step down from parliament at the election, becoming the 64th Tory MP to do so.
By contrast 18 Labour MPs, nine Scottish National party MPs, eight independents, two Sinn Féin MPs, one Green and one Plaid Cymru MP have said they plan to exit the Commons at the election, according to the Institute for Government think-tank.
Zahawi, Conservative MP for Stratford-on-Avon since 2010, has served in a range of front-bench roles.
He was sacked from his most recent position as Tory chair in January 2023 after he was found to have committed “serious breaches” of the ministerial code by failing to be transparent about his tax affairs.
He was appointed chancellor for two months in the dying days of Boris Johnson’s administration following the resignation of Rishi Sunak. He was also previously education secretary and vaccines minister during the pandemic.
In a statement on X announcing his decision, Zahawi said it had been a great honour to serve his constituents but “the time is right for a new, energetic Conservative” to become the candidate for a seat best known as the birthplace of William Shakespeare.
Quoting the Bard, Zahawi said “parting is such sweet sorrow”, but vowed that Sunak and the Tory party would continue to have his “unswerving support” into the next election and beyond.
An Iraqi refugee, Zahawi first arrived in the UK as a child unable to speak English. He went on to found YouGov.
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