Maybe I woke up more cynical this morning, but...
Hoping to save her job, much?
this post was submitted on 08 May 2024
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Apparently not, as she's not standing again! Says something about how much Sunak's own MPs hate him that, rather than quietly quitting in a few months, they're knifing him on the way out by defecting.
I think it really shows how far right Labour has shifted that they even accepted the move
Surely she won't be allowed to stand for Labour at the next election?
She already announced she won't be standing again
I've no idea how it works
The Labour Party has already gone through the process of selecting a candidate for that seat. If she'd defected before that had happened she could have put herself forward for reselection (and there's a different process for that), but that ship has long sailed. The candidate is the candidate, and it's not her.
Usually when MPs defect the receiving party tries to find them a safe seat to defend come the election. Otherwise what would the point be?
There are hardly any seats left which haven't selected a Labour candidate at this point. All of the safe seats were done ages ago. The handful that are left vacant are all the absolute no-hopers for Labour where nobody really cares who the candidate is because they're not going to win anyway.
Any defectors hoping to go that route have long since missed the boat. They'd have had to have jumped ship a year or two ago.
Point scoring against the government. I'm not knowledgeable on this so please could you give me an example of when a defecting MP has been given a safe seat?
Copying from a comment I made when the last one defected, it's really Labour accepts a free seat in the commons. Being principled is nice but ultimately meaningless if you have no power to enact those principles.
Just a reminder that this woman committed a breach of the code of conduct for mps for trying to influence a trial that her husband was convicted of sexual assault in. That's on top of her being far right.
Apparently, she's the first Labour member of the ERG!
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-welcomes-right-wing-tory-labour
One Tory MP tweeted today that it was impossible to find a Conservative in the Commons who regarded themselves as further to the right and many were outraged at her hypocrisy.
Succeeding her husband Charlie in the Dover seat after he was convicted of sex offences, she attacked her husband’s victims and was suspended from the Commons because she had “improperly sought to influence judicial proceedings” in relation to the case.
Sounds like a lovely lady.
Her being allowed to join Labour says just as much about them as it does the Tories. Labour being seen as a safe haven for very far right Tories is not a good look.
She's not standing at the next election so they probably just thought it was a free hit on the Tories with basically no consequences in the medium to long term. Fair enough IMO.
Insane how people are defending this just because it harms the Tories. Do labour supporters have no principles at all?
Yes, the principle is 'Labour governments are good, do things that make Labour governments more likely.'
Think about it: the message Sunak is trying this week is: 'voting Labour will lead to chaos'. Yet another Tory MP defecting totally undermines that argument, because it paints the Conservatives, not Labour, as being out of control. That's a win for Labour.
Secondly, what has Labour's message been since Sunak took power? It's been: 'Sunak is weak'. This makes him look weak. Another win.
Sunak is convinced banging on about small boats will save him. A Tory MP quitting because he hasn't stopped the boats undermines one of the few lines he thinks works. That leaves him with nothing to say, making him again look both out of control and weak.
The downside for Labour is that Natalie Elphicke is clearly a nutter. But, that doesn't detract from any of the above. Most people have never heard of her. She's only going to be a Labour MP for a few months. So, overall it's a win for Labour.
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It's perfect for Labour. They get to shower Rishi in shit until the general election and then quietly deselect her or move her aside for an actual candidate. Why wouldn't you?
My main worry is that she's just so mad that she might cause trouble for us even in the limited time she's going to be in the PLP. If I were in Starmer's shoes, I'd have had her sign some sort of contract promising not to speak to the press, at all, ever.
Well, if she does then Starmer can just kick her out again. He gets to have his cake and eat it that way; all of the embarrassment for Sunak of having an MP cross the floor, and the chance to performatively sack an MP that crosses a line.
Principles
Maybe its hard for the current labour party to understand that, but the party of the workers should not welcome hardcore right wingers no matter what the circumstances are
This is nothing but arrogant posturing. Who put you in charge of what the party of the workers should and shouldn't do?
Because it is a direct contradiction for the party of workers to welcome people with anti worker views?
What is an 'anti worker view'?
Accusing union activists who heckled her for showing up at a protest in support of P&O workers who her government failed to support of being 'hard-left militants' might be such an example
That's not an anti worker view, it's a description, either accurate or not, of a few shouty people at a protest.
Slurs against the supporters of the organisations who won workers all their rights isn't anti worker?
How about repeatedly voting on bills to reduce the rights of workers to collectively bargain for better treatment? Or does she have to shoot striking people on the picket line for you to accept she doesn't care about labour
There you go, some actual facts! Much easier to have a conversation when we talk about those instead of grandstanding, isn't it?
I don't agree with her votes on union issues, of course. But now she's joined the party promising to reverse those, she's implicitly endorsed reversing them. I assume she voted with the Whip. Maybe she's changed her mind on that stuff, maybe not; maybe she never believed it and just did what the Whips said. I guess we'll see if and how her voting record changes now she's joined Labour.
She's also campaigned for rent controls, which puts her to the left of current Labour policy. So, where does that leave us? She's anti-worker but pro-renter? She's left of some MPs, right of some others, so... just like every MP, then?
Principles
but the party of the workers should not welcome hardcore right wingers no matter what the circumstances are
I think you've got principles and policies mixed up. What you've described is a policy.
A principle for a party of workers might be: To champion workers rights for the betterment of society.
A policy for that principle could be: to not accept right wing nutters into your party because they are inherently anti worker.
But equally another policy could be: publicly humilate incumbent anti worker government in an election cycle by accepting a defector from their party knowing full well it will be temporary because they're standing down in the next election.
In a crucial election year one policy is infinitely better than the other.
This government don't need any more humiliation, this only humiliated Labour by having a former member of the government be allowed to sit among them
That's not how the news cycle sees it. If we are to believe the left wing rhetoric that the entire media is against Labour always and forever then the media proclaiming a win for Starmer and a humiliation for Sunak speaks volumes. And that's what most of the electorate will see as well.
There are two points here, and I'm going to sidestep whether her joining Labour is a good idea and focus on the other.
This government don't need any more humiliation
I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with this. We have seen repeatedly that people's memories are like goldfish. You have to keep it up for an extended period to stick, otherwise we will end up with the news cycle burying positive news for boosting the Tories.
All it takes is a bad angle of a bacon sandwich, and the press vultures will completely blow up any negative thing they can to derail Labour.
Not really a fan of her being in the Labour party. Think that was quite unnecessary -- Starmer is going to win the next election with or without this woman. And what specifically about the Labour Party's aims and values resonate with her? When you join the Labour party as a member, it's not like subscribing to Amazon Prime. It means you have to actually agree to the aims and values of the Labour Party as described in Clause IV, which begins "The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party," and includes things like "promotes equality of opportunity" and "delivers people from ... prejudice". Does she agree with any of that? I'm very confused as to how a right wing ERG member could possibly want to join a democratic socialist party, let alone agree with its broader aims and values.
The merit of permitting her to cross the aisle and sit as a Labour MP is obvious, but so is the cost. I didn't like it when all those antisemites joined under Corbyn's leadership, and I don't like this now.
After the election she's just going to be an advisor not an MP. So I think that clause may be exempt in that case, I'm not really sure how it works. The Conservatives never seem to be that worried about having "lefty" scientists as advisors, after all they could always fire them if they said controversial things like maybe not all drugs should be class A.
I still don't think it's an appropriate appointment, simply because Labour just doesn't need her. They can implement housing reform without her. Presumably they expected to before she defected so I don't quite see what the point in allowing her in was. But I also don't think it's that big of a problem. I just think it's kind of stupid.
This is an utterly bizarre defection. Going to be a lot of consternation in her local CLP if they're expected to go doorknocking for a prominent Boris Johnson supporter!
EDIT: Per The Guardian, she's not standing again.
noted woman's safety campaigner, rosie duffield, is suddenly very quiet this morning.
insert defection/defecation comment here.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Former Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke has defected to the Labour Party, saying the Tories "have become a byword for incompetence and division".
In a statement released just as PMQs was starting, the MP for Dover said the key factors for her decision were housing and border security.
She accused Rishi Sunak of "broken promises" and abandoning key pledges.
It is the second defection to Labour for Rishi Sunak in less than two weeks, after Dan Poulter also quit the Tories.
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