Natalie Elphicke hasn’t changed her values, it’s the Labour Party that has changed theirs

The decision to admit right-wing defector Natalie Elphicke from the Tory Party into the ranks of the parliamentary Labour Party has been defended by Labour chair Anneliese Dodds on the grounds that “people can change their minds”.

The problem with that explanation is that Elphicke – a member of the hard-right European Research Group and notorious for her anti-immigrant politics – hasn’t changed her “mind”. Her politics – which included attacking Marcus Rashford when he fought for free school meals for poor children – remain the same, despite crossing the floor of the house.

That Dodds sees the reactionary Elphicke as a “good, natural fit” for her party says everything about Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.

It is an organisation which suspends life-long members like Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott but which welcomes Elphicke, someone condemned for her “appalling and dehumanising language” against immigrants.

People can and do change their minds. And, political parties can and do betray their founding principles and become everything they were created to fight.

Elphicke hasn’t defected to Labour because she has “changed”. It’s the Labour Party which has become a fit home for politicans like Elphicke.

Sasha Simic

London

Am I alone in feeling baffled by the endless Tory MPs churning out the “stick with the plan” mantra? Only recently, we had Jeremy Hunt claiming that only the Tories could be trusted with the economy and that we should (yes you’ve guessed it) “stick with the Conservative’s plan”.

But when it comes to the “plan”, the questions I would really like to ask the party are:

Is it part of the plan for the UK to have the highest rate of child poverty since Victorian times?

Is it part of the plan for families with two parents who are both working, to still be unable to make ends meet?

Is it part of the plan to establish levels of inequality never seen before, with the gap between the rich and poor the widest it has ever been?

Is it part of the plan for the NHS to reach record waiting times?

I could go on.

We are repeatedly being told that the plan is working, so one can only assume that these statistics are part of the plan too.

It takes some nerve to go into an interview and try to convince the electorate that after 14 years of Conservative rule you’ve had a plan all along. Make people poorer, then just before you call an election, throw them a few crumbs and say, “Look you’re getting better off”.

This is gaslighting on an industrial scale.

Karen Brittain 

York

We recently heard from the chancellor that the UK is now growing economically and that we need more people in work to support this.

The government’s solution is to force the 30,000 “economically inactive” people into work by making it harder to claim disability benefits.

Meanwhile, there are 130,000 asylum seekers left in limbo as their claims are processed by the Home Office, all of whom are banned from working while they wait.

I wish I could think of a solution to Hunt’s labour problem...

Mike McMorran

Bournemouth

Appointed as Scottish finance secretary by new first minister John Swinney, Kate Forbes’s conservative social views are by now well known. Opposed to same-sex marriage and abortion, Forbes has also expressed a belief that having children outside marriage is sinful.

Of course, she has a right to hold these views, but would the majority of citizens in other European countries consider it acceptable that someone holding such views should be appointed to a key governmental position these days?

Judging by her comments to journalists after First Minister’s Questions, she claims she will now go on to ignore these beliefs, despite insisting they are fundamentally important to her, and will adopt a quite different, liberal agenda when acting as an SNP politician. So does this make her guilty of gross hypocrisy too?

Martin Redfern

Roxburghshire