It never rains but it pours for our beleaguered Prime Minister. Less than a week after the Tories were defeated in both the Wellingborough and Kingswood by-elections, Rishi Sunak is now facing the loss of yet another Tory-held seat. Scott Benton this morning lost his appeal against his 35-day suspension from parliament, following a Times investigation in which he offered to lobby for gambling industry investors. Talk about a bad bet…
Benton offered to table parliamentary questions, provide ‘behind the scenes’ information and ‘call in favours’ from colleagues to help the commercial interests of a fake company despite rules prohibiting MPs from acting as paid lobbyists. The standards committee ruled in December that he should be suspended from the Commons without pay for 35 days – enough to take him above the 10-day threshold which can trigger the recall process. Benton appealed on the grounds that the report had been leaked to the media and contained factual inaccuracies.
But today the Independent Expert Panel threw out his appeal, judging there to be ‘no substance to the allegation of a leak from the committee and therefore no procedural flaw in the process’. It paves the way for MPs to vote on his suspension which, if passed, will trigger a recall petition. This will in turn lead to a by-election if more than 10 per cent of voters in Benton’s Blackpool South seat sign it. And if history is anything to go by, his opponents will hit this threshold comfortably.
With a majority of just 3,690, Labour look set to take clean up in the North West. Talk about an illuminating result, eh Rishi…
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