Labour’s newest MP Natalie Elphicke apologised on Thursday for suggesting that women who had accused her ex-husband of sexual assault were liars.
The rightwinger’s shock defection from the Conservatives has been met with anger and incredulity by many Labour MPs, particularly over the way she stood by Charlie Elphicke during his trial and after his conviction.
“The period of 2017 – 2020 was an incredibly stressful and difficult one for me as I learned more about the person I thought I knew,” the Dover MP said in a statement.
“I know it was far harder for the women who had to relive their experiences and give evidence against him.
“I have previously, and do, condemn his behaviour towards other women and towards me. It was right that he was prosecuted and I’m sorry for the comments that I made about his victims.”
Ms Elphicke, a former lawyer, supported her then husband’s unsuccessful appeal after he was sentenced in 2020 for attacking two women while she was away on business.
She described the verdict as “a terrible miscarriage of justice”, adding he had been “attractive, and attracted to women” and “an easy target for dirty politics and false allegations”.
She was suspended for a day from the Commons alongside two other MPs after trying to influence a judge who was deciding whether to release character references they had written for Mr Elphicke.
In her statement, Ms Elphicke added: “My decision to join the Labour Party is not one I have taken lightly but one I made because I am convinced that this country needs a new government led by Keir Starmer to fix the problems we see from housing to small boats.”
The statement was released as Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership circle battled to defuse growing fury in Labour ranks over his decision to welcome Ms Elphicke into the party but still deny a return to veteran MP Diane Abbott, who has been suspended for more than a year over an antisemitism row.
One senior Labour MP said: “This is outrageous. Labour MPs are incredulous about what has happened.”
On accepting Ms Elphicke into the party, he added: “Politics is about policies and values and this does not conform with our policies or our values.
“It just debases politics.”
Another Labour MP criticised the open arms given to Ms Elphicke while Ms Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, remains frozen out.
“Both of them require a process and it’s not clear that the process for Diane has been moving forward any more than it’s clear that a process of vetting Natalie on her views on sexual harassment and refugees has been conducted,” said the MP.
Labour chairwoman Anneliese Dodds noted that Ms Elphicke had apologised for a string of contentious remarks including an attack on footballer and free school meals campaigner Marcus Rashford.
“There is no place for sexual assault or sexual harassment of any kind and therefore, those processes must be held to, and I think it's quite right that they were applied to Natalie Elphicke,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Asked why the party had accepted the Dover MP’s apologies but not those of Ms Abbott for appearing to diminish racism against Jewish people, she said an independent investigation was still ongoing into the veteran left-winger and would not interfere in it.
“The key thing here is that Natalie Elphicke, just as with [fellow defectors] Christian Wakeford and Dan Poulter, she has realised that in order to put her constituents and the country first, she cannot continue backing a party that is one that is as divided, as incompetent in her words,” Ms Dodds said. Speaking later on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, the Labour frontbencher “absolutely” ruled out any deal to confer a peerage on Ms Elphicke in return for her defection, but did not deny reports that Labour’s chief whip had warned against accepting her into the party.
She did rule out ever admitting Nigel Farage into Labour.
Jess Phillips, the former shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding, said the former Tory should “account for her actions” in attacking her husband’s accusers, telling ITV’s Peston: “I’m all for forgiveness but I do think that that needs some explaining.”
Another Labour MP said about Ms Elphicke: “I think it’s utterly disgraceful. She’s totally right-wing and supported her husband when he sexually assaulted women.
“There are Labour MPs still suspended and we’re welcoming MPs who have voted to push people into poverty. I despair.”
Former Labour leader Lord Kinnock said on BBC Radio 4’s Week in Westminster: “I think we have got to be choosy to a degree about who we allow to join our party because it’s a very broad church, but churches have walls and there are limits.
“Mrs Elphicke has got to decide whether she is committed to the programme and principles of the Labour Party, broadly defined, generously defined with great liberal intentions, but we are a political party and not a debating club.”
For the Conservatives, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said on Times Radio that the defection was “baffling” after Ms Elphicke had backed Liz Truss for Tory leader.
“I just can't see a good fit at all. But I guess her views and Keir Starmer's views change as often as their principles and policies,” Ms Keegan said.
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron, the former PM, told reporters: “What does this tell us about the party she’s joining? In life, if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.”
But Lord Houchen, the newly re-elected Conservative mayor for Tees Valley, said the Tories are “fighting each other like rats in a sack” and the blame for their difficulties “ultimately lies with Rishi [Sunak]”.
He spoke after a new YouGov poll gave Labour a 30-point lead, its biggest since Ms Truss was briefly PM.
Lord Houchen’s victory was a rare bright spot for the Conservatives in last Thursday’s local elections, with the party losing nearly 500 councillors across England.