Sleaze and by-elections: Labour rules out standing aside in North Shropshire

A whirlwind 24 hours saw the government spend political capital to defend a particular Conservative who had been caught bang to rights breaking lobbying rules, narrowly win the vote, perform a U-turn the next morning, only for the Tory MP to resign anyway. After a backlash from angry voters who made their views known to Tory MPs, and following the decision of Labour and other opposition parties to boycott the newly established committee, Jacob Rees-Mogg revealed on Thursday morning that the government would seek cross-party consensus after all. The House of Commons leader also said any new system would apply only to “future cases” as he had identified a “strong feeling” among MPs that it “should not be based on a single case or applied retrospectively”. Owen Paterson learnt of this news and quit.

Labour hopes that this won’t be another scandal – like Priti Patel, Greensill, dodgy contracts and many others – that the Tories somehow manage to get past apparently unscathed and with a stable poll lead. With Paterson resigning as an MP, the party had to change its plans for moving on the story. Angela Rayner has picked up on the staggering comments made by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, who suggested the independent parliamentary commissioner for standards Kathryn Stone should consider her position, and demanded an investigation. This was a “blatant abuse of his power and influence, when he knows full well that the commissioner cannot defend herself”, Rayner has told the Prime Minister’s Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests.

But Labour is not willing, as earlier reports had indicated, to stand aside in the upcoming North Shropshire by-election in favour of a cross-party ‘anti-sleaze’ candidate. The proposal was inspired by the Martin Bell versus Neil Hamilton 1997 contest, yet there are crucial differences: Paterson will not be standing this time, and this will be a by-election rather than a general election that automatically affords higher turnout. Still, some have decried Labour’s decision not to adopt the plan.

If there was going to be a by-election prompted by a 30-day suspension of Paterson and a recall petition with the required number of signatures, it was perhaps worth thinking about. The notion that opposition to corruption could be kept in the news for longer is an appealing one, and no opposition party has much chance of winning in this safe Tory seat without a cross-party solution. Yet without Paterson standing, the idea doesn’t really fly. And although discussions were held between opposition parties yesterday, these only highlighted the practical difficulties of such a plan. Plus, if Labour wants to make this a clear dividing line between itself and the Tories, rather than between politicians and everyone else, should the anti-sleaze candidate not be its own?

There is lots of by-election action coming up. In the safe Conservative seat of Old Bexley and Sidcup, Labour’s Daniel Francis will go up against Louie French on December 2nd. We don’t yet know whether the Tories will want to do North Shropshire sooner or later. There is also Southend West after the killing of David Amess, though opposition parties will follow the precedent of Batley and Spen in 2016 and decline to stand.

Most interesting is Leicester East. Claudia Webbe has been expelled from the Labour Party, we revealed yesterday, when the independent MP, who shows little sign of resigning, received a custodial sentence of less than a year. This means, unless her legal appeal succeeds, a recall petition will be triggered. 10% of eligible Leicester East voters would need to sign it to force a by-election. The battle would spark another big conversation about Labour’s voter coalition and would be the most important one for the party by far out of this batch.

Potential candidates have already started getting in touch with LabourList. Tips from locals on what is happening in Leicester East to prepare for a possible contest are very welcome.