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.