HAS THERE EVER BEEN A MORE SHAMELESS BETRAYAL?

TORY turncoat Natalie Elphicke and Sir Keir Starmer faced outrage from both sides of the House over their "shameless" political pact.

- Sam Lister

The right-winger abandoned her party to sit on the Labour benches just seconds before Prime Minister's Questions, landing a brutal blow on Rishi Sunak.

But the defection of one of the Conservative party's most hardline MPs to the Opposition was met with deep scepticism. Tory MP Paul Bristow said it "boggles the mind," while Lord Kinnock, the former Labour leader, declared "there are limits" to the party's broad church.

Senior Tory Bob Seely questioned who was  the more shabby in agreeing to the deal, Ms Elphicke or Sir Keir.

and He said: "This is an MP who has spent months attacking Keir Starmer Labour over immigration, then decides she wants Labour's open borders.

"This is a Labour leader who refuses to meet his own MP Rosie Duffield because she stands up for women's rights, but finds time to meet a Tory turncoat. I don't know which one of them is more shameless."

Ms Elphicke is standing down at the general election and denied that she had been offered a peerage by Labour.

The Dover MP is taking on an unpaid role working on housing policy with Labour.

Mr Bristow said his former colleague had been one of the most right-wing in the party.

He said: "As someone who regularly espouses views on immigration that would make Nigel Farage blush, how Natalie has made the journey to Labour boggles the mind.

"Will she abandon everything she has said and thought on controlled borders for five years and shamelessly adopt Labour's open border plan? "Will she be debating immigration with colleague MPs who think any form of border control is racist? 

"How can anyone trust a party who would welcome someone who has attacked them so viciously in the past?" 

Government minister Huw Merriman said he was "absolutely staggered" over Ms Elphicke's "shameless" defection to Labour.