INSIDE WESTMINSTER: Revealed: how Starmer's chief of staff Sue Gray was central to controversial recruitment of Natalie Elphicke to Labour - but now one female MP is threatening to quit in protest

'What have we become? A rescue home for tarnished Tories?’ That was the reaction of a Labour grandee who says that he has ‘read the riot act’ to Sir Keir Starmer’s team over the back-firing defections of Dan Poulter and Natalie Elphicke from the Conservatives.

Indeed, one female Labour MP has told The Mail on Sunday that she is considering quitting before the election in protest at the ‘trash’ which has been carted into their ranks.

Both Poulter and Elphicke have been the subject of persistent Commons gossip about their conduct – which seems to have been known by everyone in Westminster except those in the Labour Leader’s office.

It is particularly curious given that the office includes Starmer’s Chief of Staff, Sue Gray, who, prior to her own defection last year, was privy to all the gossip, intrigue and intelligence which swirls around Whitehall through her position at the apex of the Civil Service.

In Poulter’s case, an official complaint has already been made directly to Sir Keir about the former Health Minister: the claim, which dates back to his time as a single man more than a decade-and-a-half ago, is being investigated by Labour, but is firmly dismissed by Poulter as a trivial and baseless smear triggered by his defection.

He once successfully sued a Sunday newspaper over separate unrelated claims, while internal Tory party complaints about the Suffolk MP also came to nothing – but this has not stopped Labour MPs evincing deep disquiet about the welcome extended to him.

Hard-right Elphicke, who crossed the floor at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, has already had to apologise for comments she made supporting her ex-husband Charlie after he was after he was found guilty in 2020 of sexually assaulting two women and jailed for two years – and she may have to say sorry again as more evidence emerges of the extent to which she tried to pull political strings to save him from prison. Mr Elphicke, who lost the Tory whip in 2017 when the allegations were referred to the police, stood down as Dover MP in 2019 and was succeeded by his wife.

It was already public knowledge that, after her husband’s court conviction, she had written on parliamentary-headed paper to Dame Kathryn Thirlwall, Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales, and Dame Victoria Sharp, President of the Queen’s Bench Division, in a move which the House of Commons Committee on Standards said represented ‘an attempt improperly to influence judicial proceedings’. She was suspended from Parliament as a result.

Critics have also noted that Elphicke is seeking planning permission to convert a garage she owns in Dover into a two-storey house – and needs the support of the Labour-run council to overrule objections from neighbours. Any link is strongly denied.

Far from warning against recruiting Elphicke, this newspaper understands Gray played a central role in the operation.

After Elphicke approached John Healey, Starmer’s Shadow Defence Secretary, to say she was minded to quit the Tories, he passed the message to Gray, who stitched up the transfer deal with Starmer.

His campaign chiefs, Morgan McSweeney and Pat McFadden, were informed about the plan, but it is understood that senior female members of the Shadow Cabinet - including Shadow Shancellor Rachel Reeves, Deputy Leader Angela Rayner and Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper – were cut out of the loop.

The Labour Leader reacted angrily when this newspaper reported earlier this year that Gray was fighting a turf war with a group of his advisers known as ‘The Boys’, with Starmer threatening to sack anyone caught briefing to that effect.

The MoS has now been told that the rush to recruit Elphicke was driven by Gray’s drive for a ‘win’ against McSweeney, who is riding high in the party after Labour’s successes in this month’s local elections.

A source said: ‘Ignore what Keir says. There is increasing jostling to be primus inter pares in his office.’ Labour MPs are acutely aware that Gray was the director general of the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team at the time allegations first emerged against Mr Elphicke.

The wavering MP described the defections as a ‘kick in the teeth’. She said: ‘Have we lost our values? I was hoping that the Tory trash would take itself out at the election. But there’s no point if we’re going to just give the trash a red rosette. It has made me consider my options.’

She added: ‘There is no point talking to Keir’s lot about it. All they care about is sticking it to Rishi. Not values.’

The unease has reached the party’s frontbench, with a shadow Minister saying: ‘They just didn’t do their homework on Elphicke. 

'None of the people who know about the rumours floating around were consulted. There was no due diligence’. 

They added: ‘Starmer’s team are becoming too fetishistic about appealing to voters on the Right. They’re not seeing the bigger picture – Blair and Brown were always careful to take the whole of the coalition with them. Now, they seem to have ditched the cautious approach in favour of standing in the middle of the room and swinging a baseball bat shouting “who wants some?”.’

Many Labour MPs were particularly baffled about the decision to stage Elphicke’s defection at the same time as the debut of Chris Webb as Blackpool South’s new MP.

One said: ‘There was no reason to announce Natalie Elphicke at the same time – they could have waited a week. They took the shine off his day. Chris deserves more than that.

‘It was a s****y thing to do. It’s bad when the Tories are laughing at us.’

A shadow Minister agreed, saying: ‘There was no need for the theatrics at PMQs. They should have unveiled her in Dover, and kept the focus on the small boats. It just antagonised our own MPs’.

And another Labour source added: ‘One of the Tory whips joked to us: “I’m going to send you over a list of some of the others we want you to take off our hands.”’