Two by-elections officially called following scandal and resignation from Tory MPs | Politics News
Two by-elections have officially been called following a bullying scandal and a resignation from Conservative Party MPs.
Voters in the constituencies of Kingswood, near Bristol, and Wellingborough, in Northamptonshire, will get a chance to choose a new representative in Westminster.
Chris Skidmore, a former minister, resigned from his Kingswood seat in parliament this week over his opposition to the government’s green policies.
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Peter Bone was suspended from the parliamentary Conservative Party and subsequently recalled by his constituents after he was found to have committed acts of bullying and sexual misconduct by a parliamentary investigation.
Mr Bone rejected the findings of the report.
The writ being moved starts the firing gun on the by-election process. The respective councils will shortly set a date for the vote to take place.
These votes come ahead of local elections in May, as well as the general election set to take place later this year.
This means that any candidate elected will have to almost immediately face going to the polls once again.
When could the next general election be?
The selection of candidates to replace Mr Bone and Mr Skidmore has already begun.
The Conservative candidate for Mr Bone’s Wellingborough seat is his girlfriend, Helen Harrison, who is also a councillor for the area.
Labour has picked Gen Kitchen, the Lib Dems chose Ana Savage Gunn, Reform nominated Ben Habib, and the Greens have picked Will Morris.
Mr Skidmore only announced his resignation recently, so only one party – Labour – has so far picked a candidate there – Damien Egan.
As prime minister, Rishi Sunak has faced a series of by-elections which his party had previously held that they went on to lose.
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The only success was a narrow victory in Uxbridge and South Ruislip – the former seat of Boris Johnson – which the Tories kept hold of on a wave of opposition to London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), implemented by the Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
But five-figure Conservative majorities were overturned in Selby and Ainsty, Somerton and Frome, Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth.
