Another one bites the dust. The second Tory to defect to Labour in as many weeks is none other than Natalie Elphicke, MP for Dover. In a shock announcement just before Prime Minister’s Questions today, Labour declared that one of the Conservatives’ most hawkish MPs on immigration had defected to the Starmer army. Elphicke released a statement at noon, claiming that ‘under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives have become a byword for incompetence and division’ and that ‘the centre ground has been abandoned and key pledges of the 2019 manifesto have been ditched’. Not really what Sunak wanted after last weekend’s dire local election results.
‘The modern Labour Party looks to the future,’ Elphicke continued, listing the Tory government’s failures on small boats, housing and homelessness. ‘Britain needs a government that will build a future of hope, optimism, opportunity and fairness,’ she concluded. All very grand – but Mr S seems to remember it wasn’t so long ago that the Dover MP herself was not particularly hopeful or optimistic about a party ran by a leader she dubbed ‘Sir Softie’. Let’s take a look at all the times she hit out at Labour:
Immigration
A hardline immigration-sceptic, Elphicke has been rather disparaging of the Labour party’s attitude to the immigration crisis in the past. Writing in the Daily Express thirteen months ago, Elphicke slammed Sir Keir Starmer’s party for its ‘dangerous’ attempts to ‘undermine’ the government’s Rwanda Bill. Labour’s efforts to obstruct the scheme showed, she wrote, ‘that not only have Labour got no plan of their own to tackle illegal immigration, they simply do not want to’. Going on, she fumed: ‘The government wants to close legal loopholes for illegal migrants; Labour seems intent on creating them…Under Labour’s plans, terrorist suspects will have routes to stay in the UK.’
This followed her Times Radio interview with Matt Chorley in 2021, in which she said that the reason then-home secretary Priti Patel hadn’t been able to pass legislation to stop the boats was, um, Labour’s fault. And how does she square her defection with Labour’s latest admission that it would abolish the Rwanda policy if it was elected? Mr S would love to know.
Cost-of-living crisis
On plans to tackle the cost-of-living crisis and the economy, Elphicke has never been shy about Labour’s shortcomings. In 2022, the Dover MP took to Twitter to rant about the news that Labour would reverse the latest income tax cut at that time if Starmer was to get into Downing Street. Elphicke raged: ‘Labour’s solution to tackle the cost of living? Grabbing more in taxes from the pockets of millions of hardworking British people’, adding: ‘Same old Labour.’
Well, Labour has made it pretty clear that further tax cuts would be rather difficult with the deficit it seems set to inherit. Looks like it’ll just have to be more of the ‘same old Labour’ for Elphicke now, too.
Labour’s solution to tackle the cost of living? Grabbing more in taxes from the pockets of millions of hardworking British people. Same old Labour. https://t.co/Kr4d1QRmVQ
Housing
In the Dover MP’s statement today, she slammed Sunak’s government for ‘failing to build the homes we need’. She continued:
Last year saw the largest fall of new housing starts in England in a single year since the credit crunch. The manifesto committed to 300,000 homes next year — but only around half that number are now set to be built.
Yet Elphicke was once, believe it or not, a staunch defender of the Conservatives’ record on housebuilding. Research carried out by the Shelter housing charity revealed that for every 10 right-to-buy houses sold in 2015, only one house was built in their place. The realisation was branded ‘damning’ by Conservative Home founder Tim Montgomerie, but the Dover parliamentarian was fast to furiously tweet: ‘Labour’s record on [right to buy] replacement? 1 new council home for every 170 [right to buy] homes they sold!’ How the tables turn.
And never one to keep quiet for long, Mr S wonders just exactly what Elphicke thinks of her new deputy leader’s right to buy fiasco…
London’s ultra-low emission zone
At the start of last year, the ex-Conservative MP commended her then-colleague Craig Mackinlay MP for critically questioning Sadiq Khan’s consultation on the expansion of Ulez. Mackinlay lamented the London mayor’s pursuit of the policy ‘against wishes of outer London residents’. Elphicke tweeted that her fellow MP was ‘absolutely right’, before going on to blast ‘Labour London’s expensive car tax imposed on Kent residents travelling to work or specialist hospital appointments in our capital city’. Quite. Mr S can’t imagine tensions between Elphicke and Khan will ease anytime soon.
Strikes
The Dover politician has demonstrated she’s a dab hand at video editing too, uploading a number of Twitter clips in 2022 that show her talking to constituents about the effects of rail strikes on local communities. Tweeting that Grant Shapps was ‘absolutely right’ to take a ‘firm stance’ over the industrial action, Elphicke was quick to slam the ‘RMT/Labour-supported strikes’. Mr S wonders how well her anti-strike stance will go down in Labour circles given it was, er, created by the trade unions. Does she know what party she’s joining?!
Five times Natalie Elphicke criticised Starmer’s Labour
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08.05.2024
Another one bites the dust. The second Tory to defect to Labour in as many weeks is none other than Natalie Elphicke, MP for Dover. In a shock announcement just before Prime Minister’s Questions today, Labour declared that one of the Conservatives’ most hawkish MPs on immigration had defected to the Starmer army. Elphicke released a statement at noon, claiming that ‘under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives have become a byword for incompetence and division’ and that ‘the centre ground has been abandoned and key pledges of the 2019 manifesto have been ditched’. Not really what Sunak wanted after last weekend’s dire local election results.
‘The modern Labour Party looks to the future,’ Elphicke continued, listing the Tory government’s failures on small boats, housing and homelessness. ‘Britain needs a government that will build a future of hope, optimism, opportunity and fairness,’ she concluded. All very grand – but Mr S seems to remember it wasn’t so long ago that the Dover MP herself was not particularly hopeful or optimistic about a party ran by a leader she dubbed ‘Sir Softie’. Let’s take a look at all the times she hit out at Labour:
Immigration
A hardline immigration-sceptic, Elphicke has been rather disparaging of the Labour party’s attitude to the immigration crisis in the past. Writing in the Daily........
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