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Natalie Elphicke, the MP who last week sensationally defected from the Conservatives to Labour, has been accused of lobbying ministers over her then-husband Charlie Elphicke’s sexual assault case four years ago.
The allegations raise fresh questions over the judgment of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer in allowing the rightwing MP for Dover to join his party.
Starmer appeared triumphant in the House of Commons during Prime Minister’s Questions last Wednesday as he revealed the second such defection in two weeks.
He suggested it proved the increasingly wide political appeal of the main opposition party, which has a roughly 20-point lead in opinion polls ahead of the general election expected this year.
But many Labour MPs were furious about the move, partly because of Elphicke’s rightwing views on issues including immigration and because of past comments she made in support of her disgraced ex-husband after he was convicted of and jailed for sexual assault four years ago.
Sir Robert Buckland, Tory former justice secretary, has confirmed a new report in the Sunday Times newspaper that Elphicke met him before her husband’s July 2020 trial and urged him to ask the judiciary to move the trial from Southwark Crown Court in central London, in an apparent attempt to limit publicity. Buckland refused to consider the requests, calling them a “constitutional outrage”.
“She was told in no uncertain terms it would have been completely inappropriate to speak to the judge about the trial at all,” he said. One person close to Buckland, who served as justice secretary between 2019 and 2021, said he had “never had anything like it” during his tenure.
However, the Labour party said: “Natalie Elphicke totally rejects that characterisation of the meeting. If Robert Buckland had any genuine concerns about the meeting, then he should have raised them at the time, rather than making claims to the newspapers now Natalie has chosen to join the Labour party.”
Asked by Sky News if he believed Elphicke’s denial, shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth said on Sunday: “She said it’s nonsense and not her interpretation of the meeting.”
The Sunday Times also reported claims that Sir Mark Spencer, then the Tory chief whip, later refused a request from Elphicke to arrange another meeting with Buckland so that she could raise concerns about the quality of her husband’s pillows in prison.
A spokesperson for Natalie Elphicke described that claim as “nonsense”, adding: “It’s certainly true that Mr Elphicke continued to be supported after his imprisonment by a large number of Conservative MPs who had known him for a long time, including some who visited him and independently lobbied on his behalf, which was nothing to do with Natalie.”
Natalie Elphicke became MP for Dover in December 2019, after her then husband stood down from the role after being charged with sexual assault. They have since divorced.
In late 2020 Elphicke was criticised by the office of the lord chief justice of England and Wales for an “improper” attempt to influence a judge hearing the trial of her then husband. In 2021, Elphicke was among a trio of MPs handed a one-day suspension from parliament by the Commons standards committee in relation to their attempts to influence the judge.
On Thursday Elphicke apologised for saying in an interview after her then husband’s conviction that he was an “easy target” for false allegations because he was “attractive”.
One Labour MP said backbenchers were still “furious” about the way that Starmer had handled the defection. “He cannot succeed after an initial flush of enthusiasm if senior MPs don’t like or trust him, and most of us don’t,” they said. “This will fester as he continues to ignore us.”
But Ashworth said Elphicke’s defection revealed the “disintegration and decay” in the Conservative party ahead of the general election.
“She was hugely, hugely disappointed and let down by the government’s failure to get young people on to the housing ladder and deal with problems in the rental market and their failure to bring order to our borders,” he said.
“But more broadly, Natalie Elphicke, like Conservatives across the country, are coming over to the Labour party, that’s a good thing,” he added.
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