In welcoming Natalie Elphicke, has Starmer ditched morality in favour of winning a majority?

An intriguing question was on the minds of some Labour MPs after Keir Starmer welcomed the right-wing Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke into their party with open arms: would she have survived the vetting process to become a Labour parliamentary candidate?

The Labour high command has imposed such iron discipline on selections that only a handful of left-wingers have been chosen. After a recent weekend “training session” for candidates emphasised the need for message discipline, one of those present told me: “There was no need for it. You couldn’t imagine a more loyal bunch.”

Certainly, Elphicke’s previous remarks about her former husband Charlie’s conviction for sexually assaulting two women might have been probed more fully if, in a different world, she had applied to be a Labour candidate. (She apologised only after a backlash from Labour MPs.)

Her past attacks on Labour would also have been closely examined. In the event, it didn’t arise and Elphicke is standing down as MP for Dover at the general election.

As that looms, loyalty to Starmer within his party is at its high-water mark. Yet the hostile reaction from Labour MPs horrified by his welcome for Elphicke showed the party still has a beating heart, and is true to its traditional values.

For some female Labour MPs, Starmer’s move was another example of what they call the “boys’ club” in the leader of the opposition’s office – even though his chief of staff Sue Gray was in the very tight circle who knew Elphicke was about to jump ship. Alan Campbell, Labour’s chief whip, who knows the party’s pulse without having to measure it, warned Starmer there would be unease but the Labour leader pressed on.

For him, Elphicke was simply a gift too good to turn down. If some Labour noses were out of joint, so be it. Although Starmer would not put it like this, his desire for a majority trumped morality. His allies judge that if voters notice the Elphicke story, they will see another Tory MP switching to Labour. There was icing on the cake: the Dover MP’s endorsement of Starmer’s plan to “stop the boats” and rejection of the government’s Rwanda scheme.

An unrepentant but confident Starmer gave the electoral game away when he appeared alongside Elphicke in Dover on Friday to unveil his revised plan to tackle illegal immigration.

Her dramatic move illustrated perfectly Starmer’s number one priority: to win over 2019 Tory voters, many of whom deserted Labour. He broadened it to appeal to others who have never backed Labour, saying he wanted his changed Labour Party to be a place where “reasonably minded people, whichever way they voted in the past” felt at home.

He played up his non-tribal credentials, recalling that he came late to politics and did not spend his formative years “in the tribal politics of Westminster.”

This pitch makes good electoral sense. The pool of undecided 2019 Tory voters is a large one and both the Tories and Labour fish in it daily. While Labour is on course for a majority, its size is still very much up for grabs, and could decide whether Starmer gets one five-year term or more. As one senior Tory told me: “The question is whether we have 150 seats or 250.”

Perhaps Starmer’s ruthless streak should not have surprised his disgruntled MPs. He has already ensured that Jeremy Corbyn will not be a Labour election candidate. Even Tony Blair turned down the chance to do that when Labour whips gave him the opportunity.

As someone who charted Blair’s rise, I saw his ruthless streak. Ditching the party’s Clause IV, its commitment to old-style nationalisation, was ballsy. But Blair picked his battles carefully. At least while opposition leader, he was aware of his party’s sensitivities. He once hit the roof when I wrote that he was turning Labour into the “SDP mark two”. Traitorous.

Would Blair have welcomed Elphicke? Some Labour MPs are not sure, but one close Blair ally told me: “Yes, he would. This [Elphicke controversy] is much ado about nothing from MPs who should get off Twitter and focus on voters.”

Starmer has copied Blair by praising Margaret Thatcher. Yet after winning headlines in Tory-supporting newspapers, Starmer beat a tactical retreat amid a Labour backlash, making clear he opposed Thatcher’s policies. It’s called having it both ways.

Starmer can’t retreat over Elphicke now. She is too useful to his primary goal of winning, and big. I rather doubt she will have a prominent Labour role after the election. She has already served her purpose. Being a defector is often a lonely business: your old party hates you and your new party doesn’t trust you. In Elphicke’s case, both reactions come with knobs on.

The Labour leader won’t lose too much sleep now about the discontent in his party. The revolt over Elphicke will fizzle out; there’s an election coming. But some bruises will remain. If Starmer becomes prime minister, he will have less credit in the bank with his MPs and party members. He will need their support when the going gets tough, as it will.