Right, so there are it seems no limits, no restrictions, no barriers whatsoever to Tory MPs, no matter how chronically awful they have been previously, how scandalised, how abhorrent their views, should they wish to defect to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party and nothing quite underlines that quite like admitting the now formerly Tory MP for Dover Natalie Elphicke, easily one of the worst examples of a Tory MP that there is and if you haven’t heard of her or don’t know much about her, you’d best be sitting down before you go much further. No ifs no buts, no questions asked it seems, the party that has been purging the left, that has suspended and kept out the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott has no problems letting in a hard right Tory instead. Again and again, Starmer manages to prove that he is no alternative to the Tories and really, nothing has quite rubber stamped that like this move has. If Labour under Starmer is the rightful home for the likes of Natalie Elphicke now, then it is no home anymore for anybody with a sense of what is right and decent. This is an absolute scumbag move from Starmer, for so many reasons, because this is who his Labour now apparently represents.
Right, so Natalie Elphicke, the now former Tory MP for Dover and Deal defected to Labour this afternoon just before PMQs, giving Starmer opportunity to gloat like mad at Rishi Sunak about it, but if his brains weren’t in his boots, he might summon his evidently few brain cells together and realise the untold damage this move ought to do to his party, the moment people actually get wind of who Natalie Elphicke is and what she actually stands for politically, because if these are Labour values now, then run a mile, don’t for God’s sake cast a vote in their direction now. If this is what Starmer welcomes and therefore by extension supports, why else would he admit Elphicke as a Labour member now after all, if this were not true? Then the last thing we want is them in power. Put it this way, even Starmer social media superfan Supertanskiii has had a meltdown over this, and she’ll usually defend Starmer all day long, is calling the move a big effing error. I’m not sure her centrist dad base will quite be able to contain themselves.
Labour have set themselves up so badly here though, because not only have they welcomed this awful woman into their ranks, but they’ve even apparently gone on record as saying Elphicke shares their values and that there are no skeletons in her cupboard. Well let’s go looking anyway shall we?
We might as well start with why Tankskiii thinks this is such a massive error though, for once I agree with her and it is no small part probably what Natalie Elphicke is best known for, and that is the circumstances of her election and how it relates to the sexual assault crimes her husband was convicted of.
You see Dover’s former MP before Natalie Elphicke, was her husband, Charlie Elphicke, who was suspended from the Tory Party in 2017 after allegations of sexual assault came out against him. Natalie Elphicke was selected to stand for Dover and Deal going into the 2019 General Election, the thinking being she’d just be keeping Charlie’s seat warm for him, but nobody actually knows how she came to be selected, she just appears to have ben the only candidate put forward, so no option for local Tories to quiz her or anything like that, it appears to have been a big stitch up by the local Conservative Association.
At any rate, in July that year, the Crown Prosecution Service announced they were charging Charlie Elphicke with three counts of sexual assault relating to two women. The following July he was convicted on all three counts and sentenced to 2 years, which he had the brass neck to try and appeal, failed, and only served half his sentence anyway. Following his release, and break out your tiniest violins to hear this, he apparently ended up in a rented one bedroom flat and on Universal Credit, he and Natalie initially separating and later divorcing, but that is skipping on with the story slightly.
During the legal proceedings it later emerged that five Tory MPs had attempted to subvert justice, by trying to influence the judge overseeing Charlie Elphicke’s case, in the form of a signed letter by all 5 MPs appealing to the judge to not disclose their character statements for Charlie Elphicke and this all came out when the 5 MPs in question were forced to apologise to the House of Commons or face suspension themselves for what they’d tried to do. It emerged that Natalie Elphicke, was the ringleader of this campaign, with former minister Theresa Villiers, currently serving Deputy Speaker of the House Roger Gale, Adam Holloway and Bob Stewart being led by her in this stunt.
So what you have in Natalie Elphicke, is an MP, who led a campaign into trying to influence a judge, who was overseeing a sexual assault court case, involving three counts of sexual assault having been brought by the Crown Prosecution Service, being welcomed into a party that is supposed to be opposed to everything the Tories are, but which is literally led by a former human rights lawyer, who himself used to be in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service. On this matter alone, Keir Starmer has clearly taken leave of what passes for his senses. For the sake of a gotcha on Rishi Sunak today, springing the defection on him as Elphicke just walked up and sat down behind Starmer, to the shocked reactions of the Tory benches, he needn’t bother ever mentioning being Director of Public Prosecutions ever again, when he’s admitted someone as an MP, who tried to unduly influence a court case the current DPP and the current CPS had brought.
As an MP, Elphicke has been truly dreadful as well. Being the MP for Dover, the closest constituency to the continent, and being very right wing with it, former Channel 4 Journo Michael Crick has taken to Twitter and confessed his puzzlement, that Elphicke joined Labour and not Reform UK and that if he were still a reporter he would pursue Labour and Elphicke relentlessly over this, a big hint to others there. Also, one of her former colleagues has apparently said they weren’t aware of anyone being to the right of Natalie Elphicke, and this is the same party of Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman here, but just like them and in no small part due to her constituency’s location refugee bashing is a big thing of hers. She took to the comic that masquerades as a newspaper, the Daily Express last year in a piece that began:
‘Lefties aren't defending migrants they're defending a multi billion pound criminal empire
Fire-bombings, terrorism, violent protest on our streets, unbelievable strain on public services and genuine fear are the common denominators of people trafficking on my constituents, writes MP for Dover Natalie Elphicke.’
It’s full on Faragist nonsense, but not only was she prepared to put pen to paper to vent her spleen over small boats, I’ll be very interested how that gels with Labour Party values of course, but she also used a debate on the conduct of Boris Johnson, for whom she was of course an enormous fan and used it to launch an appalling attack on refugees as well, she doesn’t believe there is a migrant crisis at all you see, just illegal migrants, as in all of them then? That’s what it sounds like.
Natalie Elphicke is the sort of person who would attack Marcus Rashford for his campaigning on child poverty, despite it then coming out that she was second jobbing as a board member for a further £36K a year. She doesn’t have a social justice bone in her body, she in no way embodies Labour values and neither clearly does Keir Starmer, not that is really news anymore.
She, like most Tories has an ardent dislike of Trade Unions, but when P&O did the the dirty on their employees, using fire and rehire to get rid of more expensive British workers in preference of cheaper foreign Labour, she tried to join the RMT picket line in her constituency and got told where to go, because when it came to banning fire and rehire, she voted against it in parliament. Now she’s a member of the |party formed by the Trade Unions, I sincerely hope a few of them are considering their Labour Party funding over this, because sure this is a red line isn’t it guys?
I’ll tell you what is also a red line, what is also not in keeping with Labour values and what is completely backwards and disgusting and that is voting down abortion rights as well as trade union support. She actually voted to make abortion illegal in Northern Ireland. Now we are supposed to believe she backs the unions and changed her ways?
This appointment is utterly gut wrenchingly disgraceful and all Keir Starmer can do is post a photo of himself shaking her hand and tweeting out:
‘Welcome, Natalie Elphicke, Labour’s new MP for Dover and Deal. I am proud to lead a changed Labour Party that is back in service of working people.’
A changed Labour Party? You haven’t changed it, you’ve killed it. There is no Labour Party anymore, how can there be with someone like Natalie Elphicke welcome in it, but not people who liked a Green Party tweet, not people who like the Foo Fighters, not for socialists, not for proscribed protest groups, not for Jeremy Corbyn, not for Diane Abbott, not for all those MPs deselected on spurious, suspicious grounds in favour of right wing alternatives, a party that now welcomes an anti abortion, anti refugee, anti trade union, anti child poverty campaigning MP, yet still wants to gaslight us by saying they are anti discrimination? It is a sick joke of a party now, an absolute sham and I can imagine a lot of members will once again be cutting up their membership cards tonight after this. This is just mad. Never before have we as a nation needed to take our votes elsewhere from both main parties because right now it seems if either the Tories or Labour get a majority, things are going to get even worse for us all.
Meanwhile of course, just a couple days ago, Keir Starmer was dealing with the fallout of having lost votes that he would be seeking to win them back. With appointments like this, you have zero chance of that sunshine, but entertain yourself with the notion in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.