United Kingdom

Sunak faces prospect of another byelection defeat after Scott Benton loses appeal against 35-day Commons suspension

Rishi Sunak faces another likely byelection defeat. The Commons independent expert panel, which deals with appeals from MPs accused of misconduct, has rejected an appeal from Scott Benton against a standards committee recommendation saying he should be suspended from the Commons for 35 days for offering to lobby on behalf of the gambling industry.

The 35-day suspension will have to be approved by the Commons as a whole, but that will be a formality. And once that has been agreed, because the suspension is longer than 10 days, the Recall Act kicks in, which means that if 10% of voters in the constituency sign a petition calling for a byelection, there will be one. In all recent cases, that 10% threshold has been achieved comfortably.

Benton is MP for Blackpool South and he had a majority for the Conservatives of 3,690 at the last election over Labour. Given the current state of polling, this looks like an inevitable Labour win.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/feb/20/post-office-horizon-scandal-conservatives-kemi-badenoch-rishi-sunak-uk-politics-live?page=with:block-65d487418f089ef9a4ddd1b4#block-65d487418f089ef9a4ddd1b4