Conservatives face another by-election as Chris Pincher loses House of Commons appeal

Chris Pincher has lost his appeal against an eight-week suspension from the House of Commons. Credit: UK Parliament/PA

Rishi Sunak faces another potentially difficult by-election after an MP found drunk and groped by two men was defeated by his appeal to be removed from the House of Commons.

Chris Pincher sought to overturn the House Standards Committee's recommendation that he be suspended eight weeks after he was found «on the balance of probabilities» guilty of assaulting two men at the Carlton Club in London last June.

On Monday morning, however, Mr. Pincher filed an appeal, which he filed with the Ground, that the sanction was disproportionate, rejected by the Independent Review Panel.

Mr. Pincher, who resigned from the front bench and lost his whip after the allegations, is currently an independent MP.

If MPs vote in favor of the recommended removal, the former Deputy Chief Whip could face defeat. -election because that period is much longer than the 10 days that would result in a petition to have his Tamworth seat revoked.

It remains possible that Mr. Pincher may choose to leave Parliament instead of to petition for a retraction, similar to how Owen Paterson resigned in November 2021 after he was found to have violated paid advocacy rules.

Mr. Pincher won Tamworth with a majority of 19,000 votes in 2019. If 10 percent of county voters sign the recall petition, the Conservatives will have to fight another candidate. election to the seat they won in the last general election.

Earlier this year, the Tories watched a similar majority be overturned in a by-election, losing their majority of 19,000 seats in Somerton and Frome to the Liberal Democrats and a majority of 20,000 in Selby and Ainsty to Labor in July.

Mr Sunaku is already facing another by-election in the Middle Bedfordshire constituency of Nadine Dorris in the coming months as the government could introduce a ruling on Monday to start the countdown to a vote in her place.

< p>The Standards Committee's July report found that Mr. Pincher's actions «caused significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Representatives as a whole» by grabbing one man's arm and then stroking his neck and squeezing his buttocks.

< p>The second man, a civil servant, accused Mr. Pincher of touching his ass and squeezing his testicles. Mr. Pincher did not appeal the standards committee's decision that he violated the Code of Conduct.

He wrote to Boris Johnson, then prime minister, asking him to step down as deputy chief of staff in June 2022, saying that he «drank too much and embarrassed himself and other people.»