Wellingborough MP Peter Bone will learn on Tuesday whether he is being kicked out by voters, potentially opening up another tricky by-election for Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives.
Constituents have until 5pm to add their names to a recall petition, which was sparked when Mr Bone was suspended from the Commons for six weeks after an inquiry found he had subjected a staff member to bullying and sexual misconduct.
If signed by 10% of eligible voters in his Northamptonshire constituency, or 7,904 people, he will lose the seat and a by-election will be called. The result is expected on Tuesday evening.
The former minister has been sitting as an independent, having lost the Conservative whip after the inquiry reported its findings on October 16.
He has held the seat for the Conservatives since 2005 and retained it at the 2019 election with a majority of 18,540.
That would normally make it safe for the Tories. But the party has suffered a string of bruising by-election defeats, seeing bigger majorities evaporate in Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire on October 19.
The Independent Expert Panel, a parliamentary watchdog, upheld an earlier investigation that Mr Bone had indecently exposed himself to the complainant in the bathroom of a hotel room during a work trip to Madrid.
The IEP found Mr Bone had “verbally belittled, ridiculed, abused and humiliated” an employee and “repeatedly physically struck and threw things” at him.
As well as being found to have indecently exposed himself, the MP also imposed an “unwanted and humiliating ritual” on the man by forcing him to sit with his hands in his lap when the politician was unhappy with his work, the investigation found.
The complainant at the centre of the case told the BBC it was a “horrid, brutal, dark experience that left me a broken shell of the young man I once was”.
Mr Bone has said the allegations against him, dating from 2012 and 2013, are “without foundation”.
