- By Becky Morton
- Political reporter
Image source, Getty Images
Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke defected to the Labor Party, saying the Conservatives had “become synonymous with incompetence and division”.
In a statement released at the start of PMQs, the Dover MP said the key factors in her decision were housing and border security.
She accused Rishi Sunak of “broken promises” and abandoning important promises.
Labor will retain its existing candidate in Dover and Deal at the next general election and Ms Elphicke will resign, the BBC understands.
The constituency replaces Dover, where Elphicke had a majority of 12,278 votes at the last election following boundary changes.
In dramatic scenes, the Prime Minister’s questions began in the House of Commons, with Ms Elphicke crossing the room to sit behind the Labor leader, Sir Keir Starmer.
There was bewilderment and confusion on the part of many on the Conservative bench.
The news was only announced at midday and many Conservative MPs failed to realize that their former colleague was now sitting in front of them – directly behind Sir Keir and therefore in the camera filmed when he is speaking – and not in front of them. side.
Sir Keir welcomed him to the party, asking Sunak “what’s the point of this failed government reeling” when “the Tory MP for Dover, on the frontline of the small boat crisis, says the Prime Minister with our borders and joins Labour”.
Dover is the arrival point for many people crossing the English Channel in small boats.
In his statement, Elphicke said Sunak’s government is “failing to keep our borders safe and secure”, with lives lost in the English Channel and small boat arrivals “at record levels”.
On housing, she said the government was “failing to build the homes we need” and “betrayed” tenants and leaseholders by failing to deliver on promises to end no-fault evictions and abolish ground rents.
“When I was elected in 2019, the Conservative Party was at the center of British politics,” she said.
“Since then, many things have changed. The elected Prime Minister [Boris Johnson] was deposed in a coup led by the unelected Rishi Sunak.
“Under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives have become synonymous with incompetence and division. The center has been abandoned and the main promises of the 2019 manifesto have been abandoned.”
On the other hand, she said the Labor Party has “changed beyond recognition” since 2019 and now “occupies the center of British politics”.
She added that the party has a “plan to build the homes we need” and its economic and defense policies “are responsible and credible”.
Elphicke was elected in 2019, taking over the Dover seat held by her disgraced then-husband, Charlie Elphicke.
It comes after former minister Poulter also defected to Labor, due to the Conservative’s record on the NHS.
This is the fourth conservative defection since 2019.
Lee Anderson, who was briefly an independent, joined Reform earlier this year, while Christian Wakeford left the Conservatives for the Labor Party in 2022.
A Conservative Party spokesman said: “The people of Dover and Deal will be disappointed to have felt the impact of illegal immigration.
“They had an MP who sat with the party that fought to tackle this issue head on, now they have an MP in a party that worked to block our plans to combat illegal immigration 139 times.”
