Adam Boulton: No one likes a turncoat, but Labour is gambling Tory MP’s defection shows which way political wind is blowing
The Labour Party is in shock over the leadership’s decision to welcome the defection of the right-wing former Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke.
The day before she literally “crossed the floor” before Prime Minister’s Questions to sit on the opposition benches, Elphicke distributed a leaflet in her Dover constituency attacking Sir Keir Starmer.
On Wednesday, as MPs looked on aghast on both sides, he reached back from the front bench to shake her hand, and later posed for smiling photographs with her.
Elphicke is the second Tory MP in a fortnight to switch to Labour. Both she and Dr Dan Poulter have said that they will stand down at the general election and will not fight for re-election in their old constituencies or, at the time of writing, in another seat.
Labour insists that neither of them has been promised elevation to the House of Lords in an upcoming honours list.
Lee Anderson, another recent defector who shifted rightward from the Conservatives, is currently an independent but has suggested that he intends to stand for Reform UK in his Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, constituency.
The saying goes that “nobody likes a turncoat”. That has never stopped some MPs switching their party allegiances.
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Defecting Tory hits out at Conservatives
Whatever party activists and the voters make of the changes, the switchers take a risk with their own careers. Their political fortunes after the change often sink.
Since 1979, when Margaret Thatcher came to power, a total of 202 sitting members of parliament have changed their party allegiance.
More than half of these resigned the party whip or had it withdrawn because of personal grievances or disciplinary procedures.
The real number of those who may be classed as genuine “defectors”, active campaigners intent on making an awkward political point, is much smaller.
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In this parliament, a remarkable total of 39 MPs have changed allegiance. Twenty-four had the whip taken away from them, six have been suspended and nine resigned.
Of these only half a dozen are classic defectors. They are Elphicke, Poulter and Anderson plus Kenny MacAskill and Neale Hanvey who crossed the floor from the SNP to Alba, and Christian Wakeford.
Wakeford was the first switcher from the Conservatives to Labour in January 2022, disgusted by partygate.
He has been selected to stand for Labour in his marginal constituency of Bury South. All the indications are that he has a better chance of re-election there this year than under his old blue banner.
Not many defectors go on to enjoy prominent political careers after making the move.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, ideological civil war raged in the Labour Party.
Twenty-eight Labour MPs (and one Conservative) switched to join Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams in the newly formed, centrist, Social Democratic Party.
Only half a dozen of them made it back into parliament at the 1983 General Election.
The SDP split five years later when party leaders Robert Maclennan and Charles Kennedy were technically defectors again, moving to merge with the Liberals in the new Liberal Democrat Party.
Kennedy was scarred by years of vicious harassment by those who chose to remain with David Owen in the rump SDP, which, in turn, disbanded in 1990 after being overtaken by the Monster Raving Loony Party in the Bootle by-election.
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In 2017, centrists were involved in another upheaval in the wake of the EU membership referendum.
Eight Labour MPs and three Conservatives, who all opposed Brexit, resigned their whips. The newly formed Change Party did not prosper.
None of those involved are currently MPs or members of the House of Lords. Two Labour MPs, John Woodcock and Ian Austin, who jumped ship in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, were subsequently awarded peerages by the Tories.
Elphicke is one of the relatively few female defectors. Two women who left their parties have now circled back to them after dalliances with the Lib Dems.
Emma Nicholson has rejoined the Conservatives and Luciana Berger is campaigning for Sir Keir Starmer.
Read more:
What happens when an MP defects to another party?
Lord Cameron accuses Labour of standing for nothing after taking in Tory MP Natalie Elphicke
Very few turncoats make it back into ministerial office.
Reg Prentice was a Labour cabinet minister in the 1970s, as both education and overseas development secretary. But Trotskyist members of the Militant Tendency forced his deselection as Labour candidate in Newham North East.
He was elected as a Conservative in Daventry in the 1979 election and served under Margaret Thatcher as a health minister.
Keir Starmer and Natalie Elphicke in his parliamentary office in the House of Commons. Pic: PA
Until this parliament the last time when an MP crossed the floor from one main party to the other was three decades ago in the run-up to Tony Blair’s landslide election victory in 1997.
Defections then, from the Conservatives to Labour, are reminiscent of the moves going on now in anticipation of a Tory defeat.
Alan Howarth and Shaun Woodward, two Tory MPs who flipped straight to Labour, were selected to stand in other safe Labour seats in 1997 and went on to become ministers.
Howarth had previously been a minister in the Conservative government. Woodward had been the Conservative party’s director of communications.
Nicholson, Prentice, and Howarth ended up in the House of Lords along with Peter Temple-Morris, who resigned the Conservative whip in sympathy with New Labour and Hugh Dykes who switched to the Liberal Democrats.
Woodward and Peter Thurnham, another Conservative resigner, remain un-ennobled.
There have been two other significant groups of rebels in recent Conservative history, who were suspended or kicked out of the party.
In 1994, a dozen hardcore Eurosceptics, known as Whipless Wonders to their friends or “bastards” waiting for “the men in white coats” to prime minister John Major, had the whip removed for voting against part of Kenneth Clarke’s budget.
The whip was restored a few months later. These temporarily enforced defectors failed to bring down Major and most have since died.
They will be remembered however for lighting the fuse on the anti-EU bomb which subsequently blew the Tory party apart.
In his push to “get Brexit done” prime minister Boris Johnson brutally withdrew the whip from 21 leading Conservative MPs who were opposed his policy.
Boris Johnson withdrew the whip from 21 MPs to ‘Get Brexit done’: Pic: PA
Those purged included Rory Stewart, Ken Clarke, David Gauke, Justine Greening, Dominic Grieve, Nicholas Soames and Philip Hammond.
Amber Rudd resigned in protest. The whip was offered back to some of them but only a handful stood for the Commons in 2019. Only two, Greg Hands and Caroline Nokes, plan to run in the next general election. Nicholas Soames, Ed Vaizey and Ken Clarke were awarded peerages.
New defectors are usually rubbished by the party which they are leaving and praised by members of the one they are joining.
That has not been Natalie Elphicke’s experience. Tories are mocking Labour for adopting a right-winger out of sympathy with Labour values.
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Minister ‘shocked’ by defection
Labour MPs are professing bewilderment and annoyance. Some female Labour MPs are further outraged that she attempted to excuse her husband, and predecessor as Dover MP, “naughty Tory” Charlie Elphicke, who was imprisoned for sexual assault. The couple subsequently divorced.
Sir Keir Starmer says he is “delighted” to sign her on. He wants former Tory voters to know that his Labour party is a safe harbour for them, especially those most concerned, like Elphicke, by immigration.
She also has an established interest in housing and will be a consultant to Labour on that, we are told.
Most importantly in her resignation letter 43-year-old Elphicke berated Rishi Sunak as “unelected” and the Conservative party of government as “a byword for incompetence and division”.
Labour is gambling that her move to their party will confirm to all who care which way the political wind is blowing – as many defectors have done in the past.
The parents of survivors of the Southport attack have revealed the “untold stories” of how their “hero” children escaped.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, murdered Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, in what the chairman of the public inquiry Sir Adrian Fulford called “one of the most egregious crimes in our country’s history”.
Eight children were injured along with two adults at a Taylor Swift-themed class in the Merseyside seaside town on 29 July last year, while 15 others escaped without physical injuries.
The surviving victims and their families have been granted anonymity during the inquiry, with one girl referred to as C3. Her father was the first to give evidence at Liverpool Town Hall on Wednesday.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Bebe King were murdered in the attack
Reading a statement on behalf of him and his wife, he told how their daughter was the first girl to escape the scene by running from the Hart Space building and hiding behind a parked car before jumping through an open car door.
“Our nine-year-old daughter was stabbed three times in the back by a coward she didn’t even see,” he said.
“Although she didn’t know what was happening – she knew she had to run. She ran out of the studio door, down the stairs, and out of the building.”
Read more: Southport inquiry as it happened
He said she can be seen “looking scared, confused and pained” in CCTV footage of the incident, adding: “It was troubling for us to see what she had to go through, before either of her parents had arrived at the scene.”
“We are so thankful and proud that despite being critically injured, she was able to make the decisions she did in that terrible moment,” he said.
The girl’s father said his daughter “continues to astound” them with the way she dealt with the attack and her recovery, saying: “It has been inspiring for us to witness.”
Inquiry chair Sir Adrian Fulford at Liverpool Town Hall. Pic: PA
He said she has difficulty sleeping, experiences flashbacks, looks over her shoulder scanning for potential danger when she leaves the house, has a fear of loud noises and has to turn off some songs when they come on the radio.
“Our daughter knows that she is loved,” he said.
“It is through this support and love that she will continue to thrive. We couldn’t be prouder of her. She is our hero.”
Stabbed 33 times
The parents of a girl referred to as C1 told how their “beautiful, articulate, fun-loving little girl” was stabbed 33 times.
After being attacked she escaped the building, but Rudakubana was seen dragging her back inside in CCTV footage played during his sentencing hearing, which drew gasps in court, before she was stabbed 20 more times.
“That is how she became known in this nightmare. The girl that was dragged back in,” her mother said.
Police at the scene. Pic: PA
She thanked the teachers who escaped to call police and flag down help but said: “The most painful of truths for us though, and what has been most devastating to come to terms with, is that there were no adults to help during both of her attacks.
“She was only supported by other children. The courage and strength she found leaves me crushed, but in complete awe.”
She added: “It is these untold stories of remarkable strength and bravery that are missing when we have heard other accounts of this day.”
The mother said the “hours and days that followed the attack were a living hell” and her daughter’s memories – including a concert of her “idol” Taylor Swift – have “been forfeited to make space for the trauma that she carries”.
“We tell her she was brave. How proud we are that she was able to help other girls. How her strength makes us feel strong. How important what she did that day was. She is her own hero. She may be a survivor of this attack, but she is still trying to survive this, every single day,” she said.
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‘We need to understand what went wrong’
Attack ‘changed everything’
The mother of a girl referred to as C8 said she was “like any other seven-year-old little girl”, “with an incredible energy” and “full of life”.
But in a statement read out by a legal representative, she said the attack last year “changed everything” when she got a “panicked phone call” from a friend’s mother, who couldn’t find the girls.
“That moment, the sound of fear in her voice and the panic I felt will never leave me,” she said.
“I rushed to the scene and what I saw is something no parent should ever see. My daughter had sustained serious physical injuries including a stab wound to her arm and a cut to her face and chin.”
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‘We don’t want Elsie forgotten’
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She said her daughter “remembers the attack vividly” and later told her “she thought it had to be fake, because she couldn’t believe something that terrible could really be happening”.
“Where she was once eager to go off with her friends, she now needs my support if it is somewhere public or unknown,” she said.
“Simple days out now need a level of safety planning that we would never have considered before.”
‘Constant flashbacks’
The mother of a girl referred to as Q, who escaped without being physically injured, told how she arrived to collect her daughter to find “children running from the building, screaming and fearing for their lives”.
In a statement read to the inquiry by a legal representative on her behalf, she said it was “the most horrific experience of my life”.
“What I saw on that day will stick with me forever, I constantly have flashbacks and relive what happened,” she said.
She said her daughter has become “very withdrawn” since the attack and has asked her parents, “How will I ever be normal again?”
Rudakubana was jailed for a minimum of 52 years in January and is being investigated over an alleged attack on a prison officer at Belmarsh prison in May.
The public inquiry, announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in January, is looking into whether the attack could or should have been prevented, given what was known about the killer.
Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff, had contact with police, the courts, the youth justice system, social services and mental health services, and was referred to the government’s anti-extremism Prevent scheme three times before the murders.
A rapid review into his contact with Prevent found his case should have been kept open and that he should have been referred to Channel, another anti-terror scheme.
C1’s mother said: “She deserves the truth, she deserves accountability. She deserves an apology. Our girls deserve an apology.
“Backed up by the promise that changes will be made and this will not be allowed to happen again.”
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While the politicians talk, so many people come from around the world to try to get across the Channel on small boats. But why?
Why make such a perilous crossing to try to get to a country that seems to be getting increasingly hostile to asylum seekers?
As the British and French leaders meet, with small boats at the forefront of their agenda, we came to northern France to get some answers.
It is not a new question, but it is peppered with fresh relevance.
Over the course of a morning spent around a migrant camp in Dunkirk, we meet migrants from Gaza, Iraq, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sri Lanka and beyond.
Some are fearful, waving us away; some are happy to talk. Very few are comfortable to be filmed.
All but one man – who says he’s come to the wrong place and actually wants to claim asylum in Paris – are intent on reaching Britain.
They see the calm seas, feel the light winds – perfect conditions for small boat crossings.
John has come here from South Sudan. He tells me he’s now 18 years old. He left his war-torn home nation just before his 16th birthday. He feels that reaching Britain is his destiny.
“England is my dream country,” he says. “It has been my dream since I was at school. It’s the country that colonised us and when I get there, I will feel like I am home.
“In England, they can give me an opportunity to succeed or to do whatever I need to do in my life. I feel like I am an English child, who was born in Africa.”
‘England is my dream country,’ John tells Adam Parsons
He says he would like to make a career in England, either as a journalist or in human resources, and, like many others we meet, is at pains to insist he will work hard.
The boat crossing is waved away as little more than an inconvenience – a trifle compared with the previous hardships of his journey towards Britain.
We meet a group of men who have all travelled from Gaza, intent on starting new lives in Britain and then bringing their families over to join them.
One man, who left Gaza two years ago, tells me that his son has since been shot in the leg “but there is no hospital for him to go to”.
Next to him, a man called Abdullah says he entered Europe through Greece and stayed there for months on end, but was told the Greek authorities would never allow him to bring over his family.
Britain, he thinks, will be more accommodating. “Gaza is being destroyed – we need help,” he says.
Abdullah says ‘Gaza is being destroyed – we need help’
A man from Eritrea tells us he is escaping a failing country and has friends in Britain – he plans to become a bicycle courier in either London or Manchester.
He can’t stay in France, he says, because he doesn’t speak French. The English language is presented as a huge draw for many of the people we talk to, just as it had been during similar conversations over the course of many years.
I ask many of these people why they don’t want to stay in France, or another safe European country.
Some repeat that they cannot speak the language and feel ostracised. Another says that he tried, and failed, to get a residency permit in both France and Belgium.
But this is also, clearly, a flawed survey. Last year, five times as many people sought asylum in France as in Britain.
And French critics have long insisted that Britain, a country without a European-style ID card system, makes itself attractive to migrants who can “disappear”.
Read more:
Channel crossings rise 50% in first six months of 2025
French police forced to watch on as migrants attempt crossing
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Migrant Channel crossings hit new record
A young man from Iraq, with absolutely perfect English, comes for a chat. He oozes confidence and a certain amount of mischief.
It has taken him only seven days to get from Iraq to Dunkirk; when I ask how he has made the trip so quickly, he shrugs. “Money talks”.
He looks around him. “Let me tell you – all of these people you see around you will be getting to Britain and the first job they get will be in the black market, so they won’t be paying any tax.
“Back in the day in Britain, they used to welcome immigrants very well, but these days I don’t think they want to, because there’s too many of them coming by boat. Every day it’s about seven or 800 people. That’s too many people.”
“But,” I ask, “if those people are a problem – then what makes you different? Aren’t you a problem too?”
He shakes his head emphatically. “I know that I’m a very good guy. And I won’t be a problem. I’ll only stay in Britain for a few years and then I’ll leave again.”
A man from Sri Lanka says he “will feel safe” when he gets to Britain; a tall, smiling man from Ethiopia echoes the sentiment: “We are not safe in our home country so we have come all this way,” he says. “We want to work, to be part of Britain.”
Emmanuel is another from South Sudan – thoughtful and eloquent. He left his country five years ago – “at the start of COVID” – and has not seen his children in all that time. His aim is to start a new life in Britain, and then to bring his family to join him.
He is a trained electrical engineer, but says he could also work as a lorry driver. He is adamant that Britain has a responsibility to the people of its former colony.
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“The British came to my country – colonising, killing, raping,” he said. “And we didn’t complain. We let it happen.
“I am not the problem. I won’t fight anyone; I want to work. And if I break the laws – if any immigrant breaks the laws – then fine, deport them.
“I know it won’t be easy – some people won’t like me, some people will. But England is my dream.”
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