Breaking news: Peter Out
Breaking news: Peter Out
Thousands of Wellingborough and Rushden residents have signed the recall petition to say Peter Bone is no longer fit to be their MP
Sign up to NN Journal for free, political news about Northants
Wellingborough MP Peter Bone’s 18 year political career has ended in disgrace this evening as residents have decided to remove him as their MP.
In the last ten minutes, recall petition administrators North Northamptonshire Council, announced that 10,505 Wellingborough and Rushden constituents signed their names to end his political career. Ten percent were needed to remove the MP. In the end 13 per cent signed it.
The recall petition was begun after parliament suspended the MP following a damning report published in October which found during 2012 and early 2013 he had bullied and indecently exposed himself to a male employee.
The report said he had physically assaulted and belittled the staffer and during a work trip to Madrid for a modern day slavery summit, he had dropped his trousers and exposed himself after asking the man to take a look at an issue with the shower. It also found he had humiliated the man by forcing him to sit with his hands in his lap and pressurised him into giving him a massage.
The former employee, who has remained anonymous, first complained to the Conservative PM David Cameron in 2017, but by 2022 the matter had still not been dealt with by the party. In 2021 he made a referral to Westminster’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme.
The report said:
“The investigator concluded that he preferred the evidence of the complainant. He found that his evidence was compelling, nuanced and plausible. And there was considerable supporting evidence. The complainant had kept a log of events (until his notice of resignation) which was found to be accurate and written contemporaneously. It was a detailed record of events. It amounted, we are bound to say, to a clear indictment of the respondent’s repeated bullying behaviour. There was also supporting evidence from two further sources: two key witnesses at work who were present when many of the events happened; and family members to whom the complainant reported some of his experiences. These witnesses were all found to be credible.”
Bone, who was first elected to Wellingborough in 2005*, won a majority of more than 18,000 at the most recent 2021 general election, has denied that the events took place and tried to appeal the decision but that was not upheld.
It is the likely end of an at-times controversial career for the MP, who despite often refusing to talk to or answer calls to the local media, has always had a quote for the national TV cameras.
In recent months he had been a regular on the Jeremy Vine show as a panellist (although he has not appeared since his scandal) and throughout the Boris Johnson partygate scandal he was a regular apologist for the PM, dismissing the Downing street parties and claiming his constituents did not care if the PM had been partying and it was only the media who were obsessed with the scandal.
He has always been on the right of his party and was one of the key Brexiteers, joining forces with Corby MP Tom Pursglove (who many saw as his protege after he helped him get to Westminster) and Nigel Farage to campaign for the UK’s departure from the European Union.
While a number of his Northamptonshire colleagues have made it to the cabinet (Chris Heaton Harris, Andrea Leadsom and Michael Ellis), Bone has not been in favour although was appointed to deputy leader of the house of commons by Johnson, but only held the position for a matter of months during the summer crisis of 2022.
In terms of his legacy for his constituency, two of the major projects that he has promised to voters at election time have not materialised. The urgent care centre at Isebrook is still a pipedream and a shovel in the ground for the decades awaited Isham Bypass is many years away.
Political activist Paul Crofts has always been a Bone critic.
He said:
“Good riddance. He has been a nasty piece of work. He is a bully.
“You have to ask yourself what he has achieved for Wellingborough? I think the only thing he could point to is Rushden Lakes and that has destroyed the other town centres.”
**Shortly after the result was announced Peter Bone made a statement on X, saying that while 13 per cent of constituents signed the petition, 68,897 chose not to.
“As the number of people signing the petition exceeds 10 % of the electorate, there will be a parliamentary by-election early next year. This seems bizarre as 86.8% of the electorate did not want to remove me from office.”
He said he would ‘have more to say on matters in the new year’ before wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.
He could choose to concede gracefully and entirely walk away from politics, or he may decide to try and get the Tory nomination again or stand as an independent or for another party.
A by election will now take place. Gen Kitchen is the Labour candidate, Ana Savage Gunn will try to win it for the Liberal Democrats.
*Peter Bone was first elected in 2005 not 2010 as we first reported.
**This article was updated with Peter Bone’s statement at 9.30pm on December 19.
Read more from us
https://www.nnjournal.co.uk/p/is-this-the-end-for-wellingborough
https://www.nnjournal.co.uk/p/a-northamptonshire-market-towns-residents
https://www.nnjournal.co.uk/p/mentor-and-protege
If you appreciate our late working hours on this story, you could support our work and sign up as a paying subscriber. For just £1.50 per week you can help keep independent journalism in Northants alive.
Good local reporting, thank you.
Well done the NN JOURNAL.