A former Conservative minister has been suspended from parliament for six weeks, triggering a campaign by Labour to force another byelection. MPs approved the sanction without a vote, after a watchdog found Peter Bone had harassed and bullied a staff member and exposed his genitals near their face. A recall petition will now be opened by the local authority and be available for voters in Bone’s constituency of Wellingborough in Northamptonshire to sign for six weeks. If 10% of those eligible do so, a byelection will automatically be triggered. Bone, who was stripped of the Conservative whip last week, denied the allegations against him and previously vowed to fight on as an MP. However, the former Commons deputy leader has made no statement since last Monday, 16 October. There was a last-minute row over Bone’s behaviour in the hours before the vote. In an interview with the BBC published on Wednesday morning, hours before the vote, the unnamed alleged victim claimed that “the physical, emotional and psychological abuse” he suffered at the hands of Bone had left him a “broken shell of the young man I once was”. Liam Fox, a former cabinet minister, suggested the BBC may have committed a contempt of parliament by attempting to “manipulate” MPs ahead of the vote. After Bone’s suspension was confirmed, senior Conservatives privately confessed to feeling gloomy about the prospect of holding Wellingborough if a byelection was called. Observers expect the result of the recall petition to be announced just before parliament goes into the Christmas recess in mid-December. They believe that a byelection would therefore most likely take place in February 2024 – throwing a potential spanner in the works of any new year’s reset planned by the prime minister to get his party on a better footing before the general election. Bone would be allowed to stand as a candidate in the subsequent byelection.
Wellingborough has swung between both main parties – but was won by Labour in 1997 by only 200 votes. Bone held it with a majority of 19,000 in 2019. The Liberal Democrats have historically received a very low share of the vote in Wellingborough, and party sources have indicated they would not seriously contest the seat at a byelection. A straight two-way fight would boost Labour’s chances of winning it back and be an important demonstration that Keir Starmer is making more footholds in parts of the country that had swung away from the party. Labour has had a recent string of successes, taking Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire from the Conservatives last week, as well as Rutherglen and Hamilton West from the SNP earlier this month. Robert Hayward, a Tory peer and elections expert, said: “After last week’s byelections, Wellingborough will certainly be a challenging defence.” However, local Conservative sources stressed there was a very active branch of the party in Northamptonshire. They pointed to the most recent success in a local council byelection in March, which the Tory candidate won with 55%. One neighbouring Tory MP said the party was “definitely better placed” to hold Wellingborough than in the other recent byelections. Keiran Pedley, director of politics at Ipsos UK, said there would need to be a swing of at least 18 points for Labour to take the seat from the Tories. He added: “However, given recent byelections in Tamworth, Mid Beds and Selby and Ainsty have all seen swings of more than 20 points, Labour will be optimistic about taking Wellingborough too should a byelection take place.” Chris Hopkins, political research director of Savanta UK, also said Labour would “fancy their chances of taking a byelection scalp in the seat of a well-known, if not frontbench, hardline Brexiteer”. But he added that it was “no gimme for Labour and seats in the Midlands may well be some of their greater challenges come the general election”.