(Bloomberg) -- A U.K. Conservative Party lawmaker found guilty of sexual assault has resigned, triggering a special election that is likely to be challenging for Prime Minister Boris Johnson's ruling party.
Imran Ahmad Khan, 48, who has represented the city of Wakefield in northern England since 2019, had faced widespread calls to step down after his conviction this week for sexually assaulting a teenage boy in 2008.
U.K. Tories Face Fallout Over MP's Sexual Assault Conviction (1)
He had already been suspended from the parliamentary Tory party, but had resisted resigning as an MP while he was appealing his conviction. Khan said in a statement on Twitter on Thursday it would be “intolerable” to leave voters with limited representation while legal proceedings continue.
The main opposition Labour Party will now be hopeful of winning the seat back in a special election, as part of its broader project to rebuild in its former heartlands in northern England. Khan won Wakefield in 2019, one of a swathe of former Labour seats that switched to Johnson's Tories.
Thought the timing of the election has not been set, Khan's decision comes with Johnson's Tories under pressure over the U.K.'s surging cost of living and after the prime minister was fined by police over a gathering in Downing Street during the pandemic that broke pandemic laws introduced by his government.
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