Conservative defector to Labour ‘was bitter at
not getting ministerial job’
Tory sources allege that Dover MP Natalie Elphicke
crossed the floor because she was not given a post running housing policy
Toby Helm
and Michael Savage
Sat 11 May
2024 20.33 CEST
Tory
defector Natalie Elphicke stormed out of the party and joined Labour because
she was “bitter” about being denied a ministerial job in charge of housing
policy, senior Conservative sources have told the Observer.
It is
understood that Elphicke was considered for a government job first by Liz Truss
when she became prime minister in 2022 but was not in the end given a post.
Elphicke then made clear her ambition to become a minister under Rishi Sunak,
but again was unsuccessful.
A cabinet
source said Elphicke was enraged at being rejected: “I know she is very bitter
about the fact she was not made a minister. She wants to be housing minister
and she is bitter about it.”
This
weekend, as the Conservative party looked for ways to undermine Elphicke,
senior Tories were suggesting her connections with her former husband, Charlie
Elphicke, who was convicted of sexual assault against two women in July 2020
and was jailed for two years, led to inevitable concerns about promoting her.
Last week,
after she crossed the floor to sit on the opposition benches at prime
minister’s questions, Labour MPs were furious that Keir Starmer had agreed to
admit a rightwing Tory who had defended her husband, even after his conviction,
and who had cast doubt on his victims’ testimonies.
Elphicke
then apologised the day after her defection, when MPs including Labour’s Jess
Phillips demanded that she do so. “I have previously, and do, condemn his
behaviour towards other women and towards me,” Elphicke said. “It was right
that he was prosecuted and I’m sorry for the comments that I made about his
victims.”
Rumours
circulating among Tory MPs and within the government suggesting that Elphicke
and her husband were living together again – although they had divorced – have
been denied by her. She told Saturday’s Daily Telegraph: “I am not in a
relationship with Charlie Elphicke and I am long divorced from him.”
Asked
whether the Labour party had known that Elphicke had been refused a job in
government and that it might have been as a result of her connections with her
husband, a spokesman said it was “not getting into processology”.
Senior
Labour figures this weekend said that there were other Tory MPs in “active
discussions” with the party about defecting, though nothing was imminent.
Allegations
of impropriety against Charlie Elphicke first emerged in 2017. He immediately
had the Tory whip withdrawn.
He briefly
had the whip restored before a no-confidence vote in then prime minister
Theresa May in December 2018, but lost it again after he was charged with
sexual assault the following summer.
Shortly
before the 2019 election, Natalie Elphicke announced she had “unanimously” won
the Tory selection for the Dover and Deal seat her former husband had
represented. Not many details of the selection process have emerged.
Charlie
Elphicke was convicted of sexual assault against two women in July 2020 and was
jailed for two years. At the trial, it was disclosed that he had chased one of
the victims down the stairs of his home, stating: “I’m a naughty Tory.”
It was in
the wake of that verdict that Natalie Elphicke said she believed the claims
against him had been “complete nonsense” and that while she was divorcing her
husband, he was “charming, wealthy, charismatic and successful – attractive,
and attracted to, women”, making him an “easy target for dirty politics and
false allegations”.
In 2021,
she was one of several MPs suspended from the Commons and told to apologise for
being found to have tried to influence a judge presiding over her former
husband’s trial.
Last night,
Robert Buckland, the former lord chancellor and justice secretary, said that
she also came to see him on the eve of her husband’s trial and lobbied him to
interfere in the hearing of the case.
The MP for
South Swindon told the Sunday Times: “She was told in no uncertain terms that
it would have been completely inappropriate to speak to the judge about the
trial at all.”
In
response, a Labour party spokesperson said: “Natalie Elphicke totally rejects
that characterisation of the meeting. If Robert Buckland had any genuine
concerns about the meeting, then he should have raised them at the time, rather
than making claims to the newspapers now Natalie has chosen to join the Labour
party.”
On
Saturday, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, defended the decision to
accept Elphicke. He said defectors must be treated as “converts, not traitors”
and urged more to follow suit. A fortnight ago, the Observer revealed that Dr
Dan Poulter was defecting to Labour, citing his frustrations at Tory policy on
the National Health Service.
Streeting
told the Progressive Britain conference: “I’m proud that our party is a broad
church. Our wing of the Labour party has always understood that ours is an
evangelical cause.
“What Dan
Poulter and Natalie Elphicke have done is to make the same leap of faith that
we’re asking other Conservative voters to take: to put their faith in us. What
better message carrier could we have for those voters than the doctor who has
concluded that only Labour can be trusted with the NHS and the MP for Dover who
has judged that only Labour has serious solutions to tackling the small boats
crisis?
“So as
those former Conservatives look to Labour for reassurance, to judge whether we
are the party for them, we have to send them a clear message – if you want to
turn the page on 14 years of Conservative failure, if you want to get Britain’s
future back, then there is a place for you in Keir Starmer’s Labour party. Join us.”
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário