Sound the by-election claxon, Runcorn is a-go! Yes, that’s right – five months after his kerfuffle on the kerb, Mike Amesbury has (for once) done the decent thing. In an interview with the BBC, the disgraced ex-Labour MP today declared it is his intention to resign from the House of Commons ‘shortly’ and trigger a by-election in his Cheshire constituency. It will be the first by-election of the parliament – and a chance for Reform to replace the gap left by Rupert Lowe.
Amesbury told the BBC that he will begin the ‘statutory process’ of winding up his office before resigning as an MP ‘as soon as possible’. He was last month given a 10-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, after he admitted assaulting Paul Fellows. In his first interview since the sentencing, Amesbury said he ‘regrets’ attacking Fellows ‘every moment, every day’ but says he would have tried to remain an MP – a job he said was his ‘calling’ – had he been given a lighter community sentence. Clearly a result the Labour whips were praying for….
All bookmakers still showing Reform as the clear favourite in Amesbury’s Runcorn and Helsby seat, with odds at around 4/7. Labour are second placed by the bookies: quite something given they won the seat with more than 50 per cent of the vote barely nine months ago. After all the talk, now is a chance for Reform to show what ‘professionalisation’ actually means on the ground.
Get the popcorn in for this one.
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