A bizarre defection
It is hardly surprising that a Conservative MP for Dover would take issue with the Government’s failure to get to grips with the cross-channel migrant crossings, which affect the Kent port perhaps more than anywhere else. But for Natalie Elphicke to cross the floor of the Commons and join Labour is positively bizarre.
Rishi Sunak may be struggling to “stop the boats” as he has promised – indeed 1,300 asylum seekers have made the journey since April 30 – but at least he is trying to arrest the flow. Labour pays lip service to tougher border controls but only because it knows voters are concerned about what is happening. The Opposition has no realistic or workable plan to deter the influx. We know this, not least because Mrs Elphicke has said so on a number of occasions.
She wrote in one newspaper: “Not only have Labour got no plan of their own to tackle illegal immigration, they simply do not want to.” She described the party leader as Sir Keir Softie because of his approach to the problem. “In trying to sound tough, [Labour] have revealed that they are anything but,” she added.
So, why on earth has she joined the one party almost guaranteed to make the problem worse? If she felt compelled to leave the Conservatives, she could have sat as an independent or joined Reform. Since she is not proposing to defend the seat at the next election there is speculation (which has been denied) that she may have been offered a peerage.
Certainly her defection was timed to cause maximum damage to her erstwhile party, when she popped up behind Sir Keir just before Prime Minister’s Questions. Has there been some grubby deal? We should be told.