It’s about as serious a punishment as the Commons has. Assuming the report is approved by the Commons, he’s up for a recall petition which will only let him keep his job if his constituents allow it. Remember that this isn’t a criminal court of law, there’s no police or lawyers on both sides. And it can’t be allowed for MPs to “just be fired”, as that power could be misused by any party in power to oppress their opposition.
This is a serious case of misconduct. […] The bullying involved violence, shouting and swearing, mocking, belittling and humiliating behaviour, and ostracism. […] This wilful pattern of bullying also included an unwanted incident of sexual misconduct, when the complainant was trapped in a room with the respondent in a hotel in Madrid, […]. This was a deliberate and conscious abuse of power using a sexual mechanism: indecent exposure.
Unless I'm wrong this should be reason enough for his constituents to issue a recall petition no?
I'm absolutely not defending him, but I'm a firm believer that we get the politicians we deserve; let's see if his constituents give a crap about who represents them in parliament.
Look at him. Does he do a hit of Viagra before going out and sexually predat-ing? He's been doing this his whole life ladies and gentlemen, he didn't just start at 70+. And somebody thought he'd make a good MP.
I think this one is probably a YES, even in its’ current state the Tories cannot sweep under the carpet repeated instances of bullying or sexual misconduct. And TBH I think their majority in Wellingborough is high enough that they can probably risk a by-election and have it not be a guaranteed loss.
This one I think is a slight YES too, these petitions have mostly resulted in by-elections but there’s not been that many of them to reliably say that they always go that way. From what I can tell Bone is a relatively popular local MP, so it’s going to depend on whether or not Labour have the local resources to ensure enough signatures get onto the petition.
I reckon there would be a by-election. The threshold for triggering one with a recall petition is pretty low - 10% of the electoral register for the constituency. Even with a popular MP, there'll always be at least 10% who'd be happy to get shot of him, especially with Labour making sure to publicise the recall petition and campaign for people to sign it.