The Conservative Party has selected Helen Harrison as its candidate for the Wellingborough by-election, replacing former MP Peter Bone, who was suspended from the House of Commons due to bullying and sexual misconduct claims. The election is scheduled to take place after February 2022. Harrison, the partner of Bone, has previously run for election in the Derbyshire constituency of Bolsover in 2017, trying to unseat Labour veteran Dennis Skinner.
Bone was elected MP for Wellingborough in 2005 with a small majority of just 687, but since then, the Northamptonshire constituency has become a safe seat for the Conservatives, with Bone winning an 18,000-strong majority in the 2019 general election. The Conservative Party will be hoping to hold on to the seat, having lost previously-safe constituencies including Selby and Ainsty and Tamworth last year.
Ms Harrison is a North Northamptonshire councillor representing the Oundle ward and is on the Health and Wellbeing Board. She said in a statement that as the local candidate, she is best suited to deliver for the people of Wellingborough, having already done so on a local authority level. She was selected at a “packed meeting of Conservative members” on Sunday afternoon, according to Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden, who congratulated her on social media platform X.
Mr Bone was suspended from Parliament for six weeks after a report by the MPs’ behaviour watchdog found he had broken sexual misconduct rules by indecently exposing himself to a staff member during an overseas trip. The report also upheld five allegations of bullying, including physically striking a member of staff. The suspension triggered a recall petition in Wellingborough, signed by 13.2% of eligible voters that cleared the 10% threshold needed for Mr Bone to lose his seat and trigger a by-election.
Other candidates for the election include Gen Kitchen for Labour, Ana Savage Gunn for the Liberal Democrats, Will Morris for the Green Party and Ben Habib for Reform UK. Labour shadow minister Jonathan Ashworth said “Rishi Sunak caving to Peter Bone’s demand to select his partner so he doesn’t run as an independent shows just how weak the prime minister is. The people of Wellingborough deserve the best possible candidate to represent them, not the product of a quick political fix.
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More