(Bloomberg) -- UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faces a potential special election triggered by the downfall of a scandal-hit Conservative lawmaker, threatening a fresh test of his authority after the Tories lost two parliamentary districts last week.
Blackpool South Member of Parliament Scott Benton on Tuesday lost an appeal against a ruling by Parliament's standards committee that he had committed an “extremely serious breach” of rules governing lawmakers' conduct. That opens him up to a 35-day suspension from the House of Commons, giving his constituents the chance to oust him in a petition.
The prospect of a vote in a district that the Conservatives only won by a slim majority of 3,690 in 2019 is a further blow to Sunak, whose Tory government has lost a slew of by-elections in recent years to both Labour and the Liberal Democrats. With the Tories trailing Labour by some 20 points in national polls, the prime minister is under pressure from his restless backbenchers to show he can turn the governing party's fortunes around.
However Labour, having overturned two considerably bigger Tory majorities in special elections in Wellingborough and Kingswood last week, will be favored to do so again in Blackpool South and regain a seat they held for 22 years prior to 2019, when the Tories hoovered up dozens of so-called Red Wall seats that traditionally voted Labour. Another win would further cement expectations that opposition leader Keir Starmer is on course to win power at a general election that Sunak has indicated is likely in the second half of this year. He must hold it by the end of January at the latest.
The standards committee found Benton had given the impression “that he was corrupt and ‘for sale',” after he was filmed by undercover reporters for the Times newspaper saying he could ask questions in Parliament, leak a market-sensitive document and lobby government ministers on behalf of gambling industry investors. The reporters, who were posing as British-Indian investors, proposed a fee of £2,000 ($2,500) to £4,000 a month for two days' work.
The Wellingborough and Kingswood defeats mean the current Tory government has accrued more by-election defeats in a single term of office than any government since the 1960s. The former was triggered in similar circumstances to those facing Benton now, after the Tory MP Peter Bone was found by a parliamentary panel to have committed an “act of sexual misconduct” — which he denies — against a member of staff a decade ago, with his suspension resulting in a successful recall petition.
The Kingswood vote was triggered by the resignation of former minister Chris Skidmore in protest at Sunak's watering down of the UK's climate policy.
The petition process in Blackpool South will likely take around six weeks, meaning the by-election would likely take place in April or later.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
Essential Business Intelligence, Continuous LIVE TV, Sharp Market Insights, Practical Personal Finance Advice and Latest Stories — On NDTV Profit.