A by-election can be triggered if an MP is suspended for more than 10 days and 10% of their local constituents sign a recall petition.
The Tories are likely to face yet another by-election headache after Peter Bone MP was suspended from the House of Commons over allegations of bullying and sexual misconduct.
Bone’s suspension comes after a report by parliament’s Independent Expert Panel (IEP) found that he ‘committed many varied acts of bullying and one act of sexual misconduct’ against a member of his staff in 2012 and 2013.
The panel found that he had ‘trapped’ a member of staff in a room where he exposed himself – in what it said was a ‘deliberate and conscious abuse of power’.
It was also alleged that Mr Bone had “repeatedly pressurised” the member of staff to give him a massage in the office and, on a visit to Madrid with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking, indecently exposed himself to the complainant in the bathroom and bedroom of the hotel room they were sharing.
The MP for Wellingborough has denied the allegations against him. The complaints against him included four allegations of bullying, detailing that Mr Bone “verbally belittled, ridiculed, abused and humiliated” his employee and “repeatedly physically struck and threw things” at him.
After Tory losses in the by-elections in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth last week, the Labour Party is expected to force a by-election following Bone’s suspension. A by-election can be triggered if an MP is suspended for more than 10 days and 10% of their local constituents sign a recall petition.
It’s worth pointing out that Bone has a majority of more than 18,500. Labour won Tamworth on a swing of 23.9 percentage point, the second biggest since 1945 and the biggest swing in this Parliament
In Mid Beds Labour overturned a majority of 24,664 – the largest overturned by Labour at a by-election since 1945.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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