Newly defected Dover MP Natalie Elphicke, who crossed from the Tories to Labour on Wednesday, said it was ‘right’ that former husband Charles Elphicke was prosecuted as she said sorry
Newly-defected Labour MP Natalie Elphicke has finally apologised for comments she made supporting her ex-husband after he was convicted of sexual assault.
The former Tory dramatically crossed the floor in the Commons moments before PMQs on Wednesday. But her arrival has sparked a backlash for Keir Starmer, with the move met with criticism from her new party colleagues.
Ms Elphicke’s former husband and predecessor as MP for Dover, Charlie Elphicke, was convicted in 2020 of sexually assaulting two women and jailed for two years. She ended the marriage after his conviction but supported his unsuccessful appeal.
In a newspaper interview she said Elphicke had been “attractive, and attracted to women” and “an easy target for dirty politics and false allegations”. In a statement on Thursday, Ms Elphicke said she condemned “his behaviour towards other women and towards me”, adding it was “right that he was prosecuted” and she was “sorry for the comments that I made about his victims”.
She said: “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. I know it was far harder for the women who had to relive their experiences and give evidence against him.” Ms Elphicke added: “It is vital that women can have confidence in the criminal justice system and our rates of prosecution and conviction are far too low as a country.
“Keir Starmer’s mission to halve male violence against women and girls is critical and I wanted to take the opportunity to express my explicit support for Labour colleagues working to realise it.”
Ms Elphicke has been a vocal advocate of Tory plans to stop small boat crossings, but in a statement yesterday she said of Rishi Sunak’s government: “It’s clear they have failed to keep our borders secure and cannot be trusted.”
The defection of the hardline Tory MP stunned Westminster and riled some parts of the party. In 2022, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said Ms Elphicke could “f*** off” after she attacked free school meals campaigner Marcus Rashford.
In a speech in central London David Cameron took aim at the defecting MP. The Foreign Secretary said: “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.
“I thought that’s sort of what yesterday showed, that there isn’t a policy about anything, it’s just been about clearing the decks to try and focus attention on the governing party.” He added: “When you get close to an election it stops being a referendum on the governing party and it starts being a choice between two parties. And I thought yesterday, you wake up and hear about the defection, you think ‘oh no, not another one, how are we going to handle this?’
“By the end of the day it was like ‘that says so much more about Keir Starmer and the Labour Party having a complete lack of a plan than it does about a Prime Minister who is a good man doing a great job at a difficult time’.”
