Natalie Elphicke was right to ditch the Tories - but she joined the wrong party

Former Tory MP Natalie Elphicke sent shockwaves through Westminster this week as she defected to Labour, attacking the "broken promises of Rishi Sunak's tired and chaotic government".

This was clearly a surprise to all sides, especially since Ms Elphicke is no Tory One Nation "wet", something which makes her defection to Sir Keir Starmer's party all the more weird.

Indeed, her former colleague Steve Baker tweeted he has been "searching in vain for a Conservative MP who thinks themselves to the right of Natalie Elphicke".

Consequently there have been mixed reactions on the Labour side as well amid fears that in its bid to become a broad Church the Labour Party risks abandoning its principles altogether.

Ms Elphicke has long been critical of her new party - especially on immigration - which makes her defection to Labour all the more extraordinary.

For example, writing for this very paper, Ms Elphicke claimed Labour's attempts to stop the Rwanda deportation scheme was "dangerous" and Sir Keir Starmer wanted to create "loopholes" in the system.

Many would agree with the Dover MP that the Conservatives are now a "byword for incompetence and division", but why did she not defect to Reform UK instead? Given her previous statements, Reform UK would surely be a much better ideological fit.

Perhaps she wanted to have maximum impact and a switch to Labour was going to be far more damaging to the Tory brand than defecting to the insurgent Reform UK.

Yet had she followed Lee Anderson's example, it could have helped Reform enormously and be seen as more ideologically sound given her previous statements. Moreover, Ms Elphicke is not standing at the next election so that could not have been a consideration for switching to Labour.

Instead, in a statement shared by the Labour Party, Ms Elphicke mentioned the Prime Minister's "failing" on keeping "our borders safe and secure". One wonders if can really think Labour is going to do a better job in that regard.

Fair enough that Ms Elphicke is passionate about housing, but surely open-door immigration - which Labour appears to support even more than the Tories - only adds pressure regardless of whether more homes get built.

Labour did not need a defecting Tory MP, least of all one on the party's Right who is standing down at the next election. Reform UK however did, and it would have made infinitely more sense to have switched to Reform given Ms Elphicke's politics.

But this speaks to a wider problem among Tory MPs who talk a big talk on issues like immigration and the economy but refuse to jump ship to Reform when push comes to shove, and when the one thing which would jump-start the insurgent party would be a huge volume of defecting parliamentarians.

Ms Elphicke's defection suggests a Conservative Party fragmenting as it heads towards electoral oblivion. But the former Tory's rationale for switching sides would have lent itself far better to a defection to Richard Tice's party than Sir Keir Starmer's.