Another one. Another defection. Another Conservative MP giving up on the Conservatives
and crossing the floor to Labour.
Defections don’t happen very often. Or at least they don’t in normal times.
But barely days after Dan Poulter, a former Tory
minister, switched to Labour, now Natalie Elphicke has too.
Little wonder there was chat beforehand that Sir Keir
Starmer wanted to talk about small boat crossings. Natalie Elphicke is the MP for Dover.
Defections are head spinning for Westminster — such a
tribal place.
They are a morale lifting fillip for the party of the new
arrival, and debilitating for the party they have departed, particularly when
it from the governing party to the main opposition party. Why?
They personify very starkly what an opposition party is
seeking to do on a far wider scale — tempt people who recently backed the
Conservatives to switch to backing Labour.
And the party political words of the defecting MP have an
additional capacity to wound given their previous political home.
“Under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives have become a
byword for incompetence and division.”
It is the sort of thing you wouldn’t be surprised to hear
from a career Labour MP. But these are the words of someone who was a Conservative
MP a matter of hours ago.
Labour will retain their existing candidate in Dover and
Deal at the general election and Natalie Elphicke will stand down, we’re told.
But Keir Starmer will delight in the pictures of him
welcoming Natalie Elphicke to his side of the House of Commons.
And expect to see the two of them together shortly doing
the handshakes, warm words and broad smiles for the cameras.
