Natalie Elphicke: Former Tory MP defects to Labour
Natalie Elphicke: Former Tory MP defects to Labour
The MP for Dover says the Tories "have become a byword for incompetence and division".
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Maybe I woke up more cynical this morning, but...
Hoping to save her job, much?
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
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?
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.
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.