Labour defends Natalie Elphicke after claims of lobbying over husband’s trial

A senior Labour frontbencher has defended his party’s newest MP, Natalie Elphicke, after allegations that she lobbied the justice secretary in 2020 regarding the forthcoming trial of her then husband, Charlie, on sexual assault charges.

Jonathan Ashworth, a shadow Cabinet Office minister, said on Sunday that Elphicke regarded the allegations from Robert Buckland as “nonsense”, urging the former justice secretary to give a full public account of the 2020 meeting.

Ashworth was speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg hours after the Sunday Times reported details about the 2020 meeting between Buckland and Elphicke, who dramatically defected from the Tories to Labour this week. According to the report, Elphicke used that meeting to urge Buckland, who was then the justice secretary and lord chancellor, to interfere in a hearing about her husband’s case.

Ashworth said on Sunday: “She says it’s nonsense – it’s not her interpretation of events. I don’t understand why the lord chancellor at the time did not raise this and why he’s raising it now, but she says it’s not her interpretation.”

Pushed on whether there should be an investigation to determine what happened in 2020, Ashworth said: “She says it is nonsense. I wasn’t there, you weren’t there. If Robert Buckland has got more to say on that, perhaps he should come out and offer his opinions and his reflections on it.”

Neither Elphicke nor Buckland responded to requests to comment.

Elphicke’s unveiling as a Labour MP on Wednesday at the start of prime minister’s questions was supposed to be a political coup for the Labour leader, Keir Starmer. As the MP for Dover, Elphicke has been one of the most high-profile MPs calling for the government to find a way to stop asylum seekers crossing the Channel in small boats.

However, Starmer’s decision to accept her into the Labour party has caused upset on his own benches, given her background on the right of the Tory party and long history of attacking Labour on immigration issues.

Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, told LBC on Sunday she would “probably have said no” to Elphicke joining the party and there should be an independent inquiry into the latest claims.

Zarah Sultana, the Labour MP for Coventry South, who is from the left of the party, told the BBC on Sunday: “[Elphicke] was a member of the [Eurosceptic] European Reform Group; she voted for Liz Truss in the leadership; she’s at odds when it comes to fire and rehire; she has attacked trade unions and their activities; [she’s] not great on the environment either. So unless she’s had the biggest Damascene conversion ever, I just don’t buy it.”

David Cameron, the foreign secretary, said: “She was actually quite a rightwing MP, who had absolutely no affinity with Labour policies or Labour people or Labour philosophy. [The fact that] they welcome her in, I think it says a huge amount about the Labour party. If you don’t have a plan, if you don’t have policies, if you don’t have things you stand for, you will literally fall for anything.”

Sunday’s reports about Elphicke’s alleged attempts to interfere with her husband’s sexual assault trial are likely to add to the unhappiness on the Labour benches.

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According to the Sunday Times, she told Buckland it was unfair that the case was the first to be heard at Southwark crown court after lockdown, and that it was being overseen by Lady Justice Whipple, one of the country’s most senior judges. Elphicke has previously been suspended from parliament for having tried to influence Whipple by signing a letter on Commons-headed notepaper urging the judge not to release her husband’s character references.

Buckland told the Sunday Times: “She was told in no uncertain terms [in 2020] that it would have been completely inappropriate to speak to the judge about the trial at all.”

A Labour spokesperson 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.”

Despite the fallout over Elphicke’s defection, Labour is still trying to persuade other Tory MPs to cross the floor. The Sun on Sunday reported that the party was in talks with at least three other Conservative MPs, including former ministers.