Starmer was right to bring Natalie Elphicke on board – but he risks looking calculating rather than principled

Editorial: For a party leader such as Keir Starmer, who trades on his basic decency, the indulgence he has displayed towards this defecting Tory MP is painful and damaging. He should now act with more grace, and a greater sense of justice, and settle the future of the long-serving Hackney MP, Diane Abbott

Diane Abbott had the Labour whip suspended in April 2023 after she suggested Jewish people did not face racism, but suffered ‘prejudice’ similar to those with ginger hair (Parliament TV)

Unlike a jacket from Marks & Spencer, say, it’s not possible to “return” a defecting MP to the party whence they came. Even if Sir Keir Starmer were inclined to do so, it is by no means clear that Natalie Elphicke would be welcomed back with open arms by Rishi Sunak. Certain things cannot now be unsaid by either side. For better or worse, the improbable convert has taken the Labour whip, and that is pretty much that.

This fundamental fact about Ms Elphicke frames the current controversies about her within Labour circles. However distasteful her new comrades may find her, they can’t do anything about the situation. Ms Elphicke is too important as a totem of Tory division for the Labour leadership to have told her to get lost; and the style of her “crossing the floor” at Prime Minister’s Questions maximised the embarrassment to the prime minister, and the dismay of her former colleagues.

With the previous defection of Dan Poulter, these two new parliamentary recruits bookended a stunning weekend of success for Labour in the local elections. If, as is sometimes surmised, the price of adding to the Tories’ humiliation was to give Ms Elphicke a peerage and a job in some housing quango, then that, for Sir Keir, is a price well worth paying.

Still, it is bizarre. Trying to reconcile what we know of Ms Elphicke’s political philosophy with democratic socialism would probably be beyond even the sophisticated talents of Peter Mandelson.

It may, therefore, be no surprise to see that Ms Elphicke has avoided granting any media interviews about her damascene political journey. We may indeed hear nothing more from her until she makes her maiden speech as Baroness Elphicke of Dover.

It is indisputable that, until recently, Ms Elphicke espoused views that were strikingly incompatible with her new party’s core values. As a member of the Conservative European Research Group, she was on the more adamantine wing of the party on the issue of Brexit; she had no more time for the second EU referendum advocated by Sir Keir in 2019 than she had for the refugees in the small boats arriving at the docks in her Dover constituency.

She once tried to ingratiate herself, unsuccessfully, with sacked P&O workers based in Dover, but they failed to accept her support when it was realised that she had voted for the very “fire and rehire” legislation that had facilitated their redundancy. Most offensive of all to some female Labour members, in what seems to have been a complicated process of divorce from her husband Charlie, she appeared unsympathetic towards a woman who had suffered sexual assault at his hands (an offence for which Elphicke was sentenced to two years in prison).

Nor does Ms Elphicke’s impatience with her own party make logical sense. She cites Mr Sunak’s “chaotic” administration as a reason for her defection, yet she was content to sit uncomplainingly through the less-than-stable premierships of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. She may not rate the Rwanda plan, but she has hitherto been perfectly sincere in her contempt for Labour’s alternative. Ms Elphicke is not one of life’s natural progressives.

On balance, Sir Keir was right to bring her in, because messy defections, like party funding, are an inevitable part of the dirtier end of politics, and party leaders cannot afford to be too fastidious about such matters if they are serious about power. Even if he is 30 points ahead in the polls, Sir Keir refuses to be complacent, and seizes every opportunity he can to exploit Tory discomfiture. Flawed as it is, Ms Elphicke’s move was too tempting to ignore.

What Sir Keir should also do, however, is act with more grace and sense of justice towards Diane Abbott. Ms Abbott, rightly, had the Labour whip removed over a year ago for some antisemitic remarks she had made but for which she has since apologised. The party’s internal “investigation” into her has meandered, inexplicably, since then, with the growing assumption that some people in the Labour Party would not be upset if it remained unresolved by the general election so that Ms Abbott couldn’t stand as an official party candidate.

Even now, Ms Abbott doesn’t know what is happening, which is a simple denial of natural justice. The juxtaposition of the unfair and harsh treatment meted out to Ms Abbott, a woman who has given her life to the cause and endured being the most racially abused woman in public life, and the indulgence displayed towards Ms Elphicke is painful, and damaging to Sir Keir, who trades on his basic decency.

Before long, it is assumed, Sir Keir and his senior colleagues will be in government and having to take some very tough and unpopular decisions. In a year or two’s time, he will need to draw on the goodwill of those parliamentary colleagues such as Jess Phillips, Rosie Duffield and former leader Neil Kinnock to support him, irrespective of the nominal size of his majority. He should do the right thing, end the uncertainty, and settle the future of Ms Abbott once and for all.

The problematic arrival of Ms Elphicke may well have inadvertently boosted Ms Abbott’s chances of staying in the party she loves. After all, Labour is supposed to be a “broad church”.