Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth has accused the Conservatives of being weak in their handling of the case of the disgraced former MP Peter Bone and said the prime minister is being “pushed around” by members of his party, as he campaigned in Wellingborough before an upcoming byelection. Ashworth, the MP for Leicester South and shadow paymaster general, was in the Northamptonshire seat after a byelection was triggered on Tuesday when 13% of the Wellingborough electorate signed a recall petition against Bone, who was found in October to have engaged in bullying and sexual misconduct against a former staff member. Although Wellingborough has been considered a Conservative stronghold, Labour is eyeing up another byelection win there after a string of shock results in recent months. Bone won the seat in 2019 with a majority of more than 18,000. Ashworth said: “I do think there’s a yearning for change on the streets of Wellingborough, as there is across the country now. It’s just chaos. What we’ve seen in recent months is Rishi Sunak gets pushed around by these backbenchers, characters who think they are off playing mafiosos from a Godfather film. The public don’t want this ongoing psychodrama that we get with the Tory party now.” Last week a number of factions on the right of the Conservative party, to which Bone belonged, were called “the five families”, a reference to mafia dynasties in New York. The Tories have yet to select a candidate to replace Bone – who was seen campaigning with a Conservative minister after his suspension from the party – and Ashworth said this showed the party had been weak in its handling of the situation.
Labour is pinning its hopes on its candidate Gen Kitchen, who grew up in Northamptonshire (although in the neighbouring seat) as the daughter of two Royal Navy personnel and now works in fundraising. “People don’t have quite as much pride as they used to in the town centre. We’re a market town without market any more,” Kitchen said. “It’s making sure people know we’re responsible for the local community here and take it seriously.” Three large estates around the edge of the town centre, originally built to accommodate overspill population from London, make up a large proportion of the population, which is among the 20% most deprived in the country. There was a strong sense of disillusionment among voters on the streets of Wellingborough as they reacted to news that Bone, their MP since 2005, had been ousted. Paul Tustian, 72, who was one of the 13% of voters who signed the recall petition, said: “What has he done for Wellingborough town centre? Look at it. There’s a lot of broken promises. We’ve lost the market. We’ve lost everything here.”
His wife, Sue, 79, said: “We’ve been here 22 years and I can’t even think of anything he’s done. Labour probably will win only because people are disappointed with Peter Bone and he was a Tory, so people aren’t going to vote Tory again in case we get the same as before. I don’t know if people will vote Labour, but they will vote to get rid of the Tories.” Pete Webb, 44, a trainee manager, described the town’s former MP as “like Marmite”. He said: “He was very assertive with his views. Some people might like him, he was very hard on Brexit and maybe that appeals to some but it didn’t appeal to me. “It’s be interesting to see what happens in the byelection, whether it causes ructions. I think people want change, and I quite like change but I don’t really know if Labour can do much better. But I think if this turns Labour then the Conservatives are goners.”
Gilly Sabata, 45, was working on his friend’s street stall. “What they allege Peter Bone did – he doesn’t represent us,” he said. “But look at our town. We elect people to parliament and they just go down there and forget about us. People around here are not happy. We want complete change.” The government has been contacted for comment.