‘This is Operation Radish...what next? A lecture on how misunderstood Enoch Powell was?’
CABINET ministers lashed out at “unprincipled” Sir Keir Starmer and warned he is trying to trick voters into thinking he is more moderate than he is.
In a brutal takedown, Penny Mordaunt accused the Labour leader of running “Operation Radish” – that while his party is red on the outside “at its heart it isn’t really at all”.
The Commons leader said Labour’s decision to admit hard-Right wantaway Natalie Elphicke “exposed” the way Sir Keir truly operates.
She compared him to a species of crustacean that camouflages itself by sticking pieces of assorted animals and plants to its body to lure prey.
Ms Mordaunt said: “The leader of the Opposition is the decorator crab of these benches, desperate to show he’s not really leading the Labour Party at all.
“He’s channelled Margaret Thatcher, his deputy has praised Boris (Johnson), he’s expelled the Member for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn, with great fanfare, a man he was campaigning to be prime minister.”
The MP for Portsmouth North added: “His exterior shell is stuck over with St George’s flags, his Gunners season ticket and several programmes from the Last Night of the Proms. What next: a photo op with a bulldog?
“A lecture on how misunderstood Enoch Powell was?” Ms Mordaunt said the shock defection of Ms Elphicke was part of a broad strategy to fool the public. She added: “However, even the defection of one of Labour’s most sternest critics cannot disguise the fact that Operation Radish is not going well.” In a typically punchy Commons response yesterday, Ms Mordaunt joked that she was “too Left-wing” for Labour.
She concluded: “The British people can see what is going on: they like their radishes in salads, not No10.”
And she quipped: “I am not about to defect to the Opposition benches. They wouldn’t be interested in me, I’m too Left-wing.”
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron also rapped Sir Keir for admitting Ms Elphicke, warning: “If you don’t stand for anything you’ll fall for anything.”
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan questioned how Ms Elphicke could change her views “miraculously” overnight. She said: “Her principles, policies and positions have changed as often as Keir Starmer’s.
“I don’t really know her, she’s much more on the right of the party.”
The defection has caused fury on Labour’s benches, with MPs unhappy former leader Mr Corbyn and Diane Abbott have had the whip withdrawn but Ms Elphicke has been admitted.
Party chair Anneliese Dodds said Ms Elphicke was a good fit for the party and “people can change their minds”.