RISHI SUNAK faced a fresh by-election nightmare today with yet another Tory MP set to be suspended from the Commons amid scandal.
Blackpool South MP Scott Benton was recommended for a 35-day suspension by the Commons standards committee after telling undercover reporters that he was up for lucrative lobbying on behalf of gambling interests, actions the committee said undermined democracy.
The suspension, certain to be endorsed by MPs, is well over the limit for triggering a recall petition in his constituency.
Mr Benton held Blackpool South in 2019 by a margin of just 3,690 votes over Labour, much less than the gargantuan Conservative majorities overturned by Labour or the Liberal Democrats in recent by-elections.
The report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, which was sent to the Commons committee, found that Mr Benton had told the reporters that “he would be willing to breach and/or circumvent the house’s rules for the company in return for payment.”
He concluded: “Mr Benton’s conduct would cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole.”
The Commons standards committee said Mr Benton’s actions were an “extremely serious breach” of the rules.
The message he gave to the undercover reporters was “that he was corrupt and ‘for sale’, and that so were many other Members of the House,” the standards committee’s report said.
“He communicated a toxic message about standards in Parliament. We condemn Mr Benton for his comments, which unjustifiably tarnish the reputation of all MPs.”
Shadow Commons leader Lucy Powell argued that “this is not an isolated case, but comes off the back of a wave of Tory sleaze and scandal.”
Once the full Commons has endorsed the recommendation for the standards committee, which has been working overtime of late dealing with sleazy Conservative parliamentarians, a recall petition will kick in.
Should more than 10 per cent of Blackpool South voters endorse it, then a by-election follows. Mr Benton could pre-empt this by resigning.
He told the committee that he “complied with the letter and spirit of the rules” yet still regretted the comments he had made and that the “meeting was a lapse in judgement.”
Struggling Sunak tried to refloat his leadership today with an interview in the right-wing Spectator magazine, in which he pledged he was “a Thatcherite in the truest sense” and denied being “tetchy.”
He hinted that if re-elected he would target welfare benefits for cuts.