Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives face another by-election battle after MP Peter Bone was kicked out by his constituents on Tuesday, posing a further test of the embattled Prime Minister heading into a General Election next year.
Constituents in Wellingborough had until 5pm to add their names to a recall petition, which was sparked when Mr Bone was suspended from the Commons for six weeks after an inquiry found he had subjected a staff member to bullying and sexual misconduct.
Ten per cent of eligible voters in the Northamptonshire constituency, or 7,904 people, had to sign the petition in order to eject Mr Bone and force a by-election.
North Northamponshire Council said on Tuesday evening that the total number who signed the petition was 10,505, or 13.2 per cent, meaning that the petition was successful.
Mr Bone said after the result was announced that the petition "came about as a result of an inquiry into alleged bullying and misconduct towards an ex-employee which was alleged to have occurred more than 10 years ago. These allegations are totally untrue and without foundation".
He added: "I will have more to say on these matters in the new year."
He said 68,897 people "chose not to sign the petition which represents 86.8 per cent of the electorate".
— Peter Bone MP (@PeterBoneUK) December 19, 2023
Labour came second to Mr Bone in 2019 and said the petition's result showed the constituency was "ready for change".
"The Conservative Party has presided over 13 years of failure, not least in the ‘professionalism, integrity and accountability at all levels’ that Rishi Sunak promised," Labour chairperson Anneliese Dodds said.
"The people of Wellingborough now have the opportunity to vote for a fresh start with (Labour candidate) Gen Kitchen and the Labour Party. They deserve an MP firmly on their side and focused on their priorities."
The former minister has been sitting as an independent, having lost the Conservative whip after the inquiry reported its findings on October 16.
He has held the seat for the Conservatives since 2005 and retained it at the 2019 election with a majority of 18,540.
That would normally make it safe for the Tories. But the party has suffered a string of bruising by-election defeats, seeing bigger majorities evaporate in Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire on October 19.
They also lost the previously rock-solid Conservative seats of Selby and Ainsty and Somerton and Frome in July, and only just held on to Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip in west London.
Voters punished Mr Sunak’s party as they delivered their verdict on the cost-of-living crisis, record NHS waiting lists and boatloads of migrants crossing the Channel.
All of those issues figured among the Prime Minister’s five policy pledges for this year. He can point to a successful battle to halve inflation, but little progress elsewhere, and some Tory mavericks are even calling for a fresh leadership vote.
Opinion polls give Labour an average lead of nearly 20 points, threatening wipeout for the Conservatives at the next General Election.
The Independent Expert Panel, a parliamentary watchdog, upheld an earlier investigation that Mr Bone had indecently exposed himself to the complainant in the bathroom of a hotel room during a work trip to Madrid.
The IEP found Mr Bone had “verbally belittled, ridiculed, abused and humiliated” an employee and “repeatedly physically struck and threw things” at him.
As well as being found to have indecently exposed himself, the MP also imposed an “unwanted and humiliating ritual” on the man by forcing him to sit with his hands in his lap when the politician was unhappy with his work, the investigation found.
The complainant at the centre of the case told the BBC it was a “horrid, brutal, dark experience that left me a broken shell of the young man I once was”.
Mr Bone has said the allegations against him, dating from 2012 and 2013, are “without foundation”.
