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More than half of these resigned the party whip or had it withdrawn because of personal grievances or disciplinary procedures.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 UK has signed a long-awaited deal to hand control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
It means Britain will give up sovereignty of the Indian Ocean territory and lease back the vital UK-US Diego Garcia military base – at a cost of billions of pounds to the taxpayer.
Politics Live: Starmer signs deal to hand over UK control of Chagos Islands to Mauritius
In a news conference, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the base is of the “utmost significance to Britain”, having been used to deploy aircraft to “defeat terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan”, and “anticipate threats in the Red Sea and the Indo-Pacific”.
He said the base was under threat because of Mauritius’s legal claim on the Chagos Islands, which has been recognised by multiple international courts.
“If we did not agree this deal, the legal situation would mean that we would not be able to prevent China or any other nation setting up their own bases on the outer islands, or carrying out joint exercises near our base,” Sir Keir said.
“We would have to explain to you, the British people and to our allies, that we’d lost control of this vital asset.
“No responsible government could let that happen, so there’s no alternative but to act in Britain’s national interest by agreeing to this deal.
“We will never gamble with national security.”
Aerial view of Diego Garcia in the Chagos Island group. Pic: AP
The deal means the UK will lease the base from the Mauritian government over 99 years.
Confusion over costs
Sir Keir said the average cost per year is £101m but the net overall cost is £3.4bn, not £10bn, and all public sector projects are measured in net costs.
However, there is confusion over the government’s calculations as the full agreement between the UK and Mauritius reveals the UK will pay:
• £165m a year for the first three years;
• £120m for years four to 13;
• £120m plus inflation for every year after to year 99;
• £40m as a one-off to a fund for Chagossians;
• £45m a year for 25 years for Mauritian development.
If inflation were to remain zero for the next century, this would work out to around £10bn over 99 years.
Assuming an average of 2% inflation, Sky News analysis suggests costs could rise as high as £30bn.
Downing Street stood by its figures, saying government accounting principles were applied to adjust for long-term costs and the value of the pound today is worth more than the pound in the future.
Officials denied suggestions from journalists that was financial sophistry, insisting it was “standard practice”.
Sir Keir said that had he not struck the deal today, Mauritius would have taken the UK to international courts and probably won, with extra penalties implemented.
However the Tories – who started negotiations in government – have branded the move a “surrender tax”.
Keir Starmer
Sovereignty row
The Chagos Archipelago was separated from Mauritius by the UK in 1965, when Mauritius was a British colony.
Mauritius gained independence from the UK in 1968 and since then has been trying to claim the archipelago as Mauritian.
In the late 1960s, the US asked the UK to expel everyone from the archipelago so they could build a naval support facility on the largest island, Diego Garcia. It is leased to the US but operates as a joint UK-US base.
The UK has been under pressure to hand back control of the territory, after the UN and the International Court of Justice sided with Mauritius.
The treaty said the deal would “complete the process of decolonisation of Mauritius”.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said that “surrendering” the Chagos Islands to Mauritius “is an act of national self-harm”.
“It leaves us more exposed to China, and ignores the will of the Chagossian people. And we’re paying billions to do so,” she said.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage echoed those comments, accusing Sir Keir of caring more about foreign courts “than Britain’s national interest”.
The location of the Chagos Islands
‘Deal inherited from Tories’
However, Sir Keir said he “inherited a negotiation in which the principle of giving up UK sovereignty had already been conceded” by the Tories.
He said “all of the UK’s allies” support the deal, including the US, NATO, Five Eyes and India, and that those who are against it include “Russia, China, Iran…and surprisingly, the leader of the opposition, and Nigel Farage”.
Defence Secretary John Healey, who was also at the news conference, added that the last government failed to strike a deal despite 11 rounds of talks, leaving Labour to “pick up the challenge”.
He said ministers “toughened the terms and the protections and the control that Britain can exercise through this treaty”.
Under the deal’s terms, a 24-nautical mile buffer zone will be put in place around the island where nothing can be built or placed without UK consent.
The UK will retain full operational control of Diego Garcia, including the electromagnetic spectrum satellite used for communications which counters hostile interference.
Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, said he welcomed the “historic agreement”, saying it “secures the long-term, stable and effective operation of the joint US-UK military facility at Diego Garcia, which is critical to regional and global security”.
“We value both parties’ dedication. The US looks forward to our continued joint work to ensure the success of our shared operations,” he said.
The agreement had been due to be signed on Thursday morning but was temporarily blocked by an injunction hours before. A High Court Judge subsequently discharged the injunction at midday.
UK
Passengers injured after train hits trailer on level crossing near Leominster – as police arrest man
More than a dozen people have been injured after a train hit an agricultural trailer on a level crossing in Herefordshire, according to emergency services.
British Transport Police (BTP) said officers were called to the site north of Leominster at 10.40am on Thursday.
A man has been airlifted to hospital and a woman has also been taken to hospital.
A further 15 people, who were passengers on the train, were assessed by paramedics but discharged at the scene, West Midlands Ambulance Service said.
A spokesperson confirmed that nobody from the tractor-trailer required assessment.
Police have confirmed that a 32-year-old man from Bromyard has been arrested on suspicion of endangering safety on the railway.
Firefighters and officers from West Mercia Police also attended the scene.
A spokesperson for Transport for Wales (TfW) confirmed its 8.30am service between Manchester Piccadilly and Cardiff Central hit an “obstruction” at a crossing between Ludlow and Leominster.
All lines between the Hereford and Craven Arms stations are blocked and trains will not run between the two.
Replacement road transport is being put in place and TfW tickets are currently being accepted by Northern, Avanti, GWR and CrossCountry, it said.
Disruption is expected to last until the end of the day and a spokesperson for the company advised anyone travelling on Thursday to check before they travel.
A spokesperson for West Midlands Ambulance Service said it was “called to an incident on the railway track at Nordan Farm, Leominster, at 10.46am”.
“On arrival crews found a man who was a passenger on the train, they treated him for non-life threatening injuries before conveying him by air ambulance to Hereford County Hospital,” they added.
“A woman was also treated for injuries not believed to be serious and conveyed by land ambulance to Hereford County Hospital.”
The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) said it had sent a team of inspectors to Leominster “between a passenger train and an agricultural trailer at a user worked level crossing”, which require people to operate the crossing themselves.
“Our inspectors will gather evidence as part of the process of conducting a preliminary examination and a decision on whether an investigation will be launched will be taken in the coming days,” the spokesperson added.
British Transport Police said its enquiries were ongoing into the full circumstances of the incident.
The economy will have to be “strong enough” for the government to U-turn on winter fuel payment cuts, the business secretary has said.
Jonathan Reynolds, talking to Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, also said the public would have to “wait for the actual budget” to make an announcement on it.
You can listen to the full interview on tomorrow’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast.
Sir Keir Starmer said on Wednesday he would ease the cut to the winter fuel payment, which has been removed from more than 10 million pensioners this winter after it became means-tested.
He and his ministers had insisted they would stick to their guns on the policy, even just hours before Sir Keir revealed his change of heart at Prime Minister’s Questions.
But Mr Reynolds revealed there is more at play to be able to change the policy.
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Winter fuel payment cuts to be reversed
“The economy has got to be strong enough to give you the capacity to make the kind of decisions people want us to see,” he said.
“We want people to know we’re listening.
“All the prime minister has said is ‘look, he’s listening, he’s aware of it.
“He wants a strong economy to be able to deliver for people.
“You’d have to wait for the actual budget to do that.”
Read more:
Gordon Brown suggests people on top income tax rate should be excluded from winter fuel
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has committed to just one major fiscal event a year, meaning just one annual budget in the autumn.
Autumn budgets normally take place in October, with the last one at the end of the month.
If this year’s budget is around the same date it will leave little time for the extra winter fuel payments to be made as they are paid between November and December.
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