MP Natalie Elphicke Defects To Labour From Tories
4 min read
Natalie Elphicke has become the latest MP to leave the Conservatives and defect to the Labour party.
The MP for Dover announced on Wednesday that she had left the Tories because the party had "become a byword for incompetence and division", while Keir Starmer's Labour party has "changed out of all recognition" since the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, who stood down in 2020.
She becomes the second MP to leave the Tories for Labour in the space of a few weeks after Dan Poulter, the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, did so late last month. His primary reason for defecting was what he described as the Tory failure on the NHS. Christian Wakeford, the MP for Bury South, crossed the floor from the Conservatives to Labour in 2022.
She will not contest the next general election, however. Labour has already selected Mike Tapp as its candidate in the Kent seat.
In a statement, Elphicke said: "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 [Boris Johnson] 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."
Elphicke, who was elected to the House of Commons in 2019, attacked her former party's record on stopping illegal immigration, saying the government was "failing to keep our borders safe and secure".
She also criticised what she described as the government's "failure to build the homes we need", as well as homelessness levels, and said that she had been asked by Labour to help advise the party leadership on housing policy.
Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions, just moments after Elphicke's defection was announced, Starmer said: "One week a Tory MP who's also a doctor says the Prime Minister can't be trusted with the NHS and joins Labour.
"And the next week the Tory MP for Dover on the front line of the small boats crisis, says the Prime Minister cannot be trusted with our borders and joins Labour. What is the point of this failed government staggering on?"
Elphicke's announcement left MPs on both sides stunned, not least because she was seen as being further to the right of the Tory party, whereas Poulter was regarded as firmly in the centre-ground.
When figures in Downing Street were informed that she was defecting they initially assumed it to join Reform, the right-wing party led by Richard Tice, PoliticsHome understands.
One Conservative MP told PoliticsHome it was "bonkers", describing their former colleague as "more right wing than Lee" — a reference to Lee Anderson, the outspoken MP who left the Tories for Reform earlier this year.
Stephen Hammond, the Tory MP for Wimbledon, told Sky News: "If there's someone who, as much as anyone, has dragged my party away from the centre in the last few years, it's Natalie."
MPs on the Labour side said they did not any signs of the defection coming, and some admit privately feeling uneasy about the former Tory sitting on Labour benches. "There's nothing Natalie has said or done that made us think she could cross to us," said one shadow minister, who told PoliticsHome they were struggling to "compute" the move.
Tapp, Labour's general election candidate in Dover, said: "No-one is happier than me when someone is persuaded to come over to the Labour cause. I look forward to her supporting my election to represent Dover and Deal in the next Parliament."
She is one of numerous Conservative figures to have switched to Labour in the run-up to the next general election.
Richard Walker, the boss of supermarket Iceland, announced earlier this year he had stopped donating to the Conservatives to throw his weight behind Starmer's party. In February, PoliticsHome revealed that former Tory minister Nick Boles had started advising shadow ministers on preparing for government, and on Tuesday he introduced Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves at a speech in London.
A Conservative party spokesperson said: “The people of Dover and Deal will be disappointed having felt the impact of illegal immigration. They did have an MP who sat with the party fighting to tackle this issue head on, now they have an MP in a Party that has worked to block our plans to tackle illegal immigration 139 times.
“We wish Natalie well as she now has to support Labour's amnesty for illegal immigrants and one that directly opposes her own views – it was only last year that she penned an article titled ‘Don’t trust Labour on immigration they really want open borders."
PoliticsHome Newsletters
PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe
